


Loner

by Verbo



Category: Grand Theft Auto IV, Grand Theft Auto Series (Video Games), Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Friendships, Drug Use, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Italian Mafia, Mutual Pining, Older Man/Younger Woman, Organized Crime, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2020-08-13 02:58:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 96,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20167024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verbo/pseuds/Verbo
Summary: Despite having nothing to do with the mob, Catherine has landed in the crosshairs of a disgraced Liberty City crime family, and someone in the shadows is working desperately against the clock to keep her safe. The three men hired to protect her crash into her life (literally), and who  knew guardian angels could be balding, horny, foul-mouthed, desert-dwelling drug dealers?** Updates will be slow, but I always finish my stories. :) **





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Boy howdy I sure am good at joining a fandom 6 years too late and falling in love with sentient garbage cans.

_Fuck you, Niko Bellic._

Since getting the call from Lester almost a week ago, Michael has thought about a lot of things; the gray hairs that keep cropping up more and more frequently nowadays. How much Tracey’s first year at ULSA is going to cost him - and that pompous, go-nowhere art history major she’s been all too familiar with recently. At the top of the list, though, is a now well-practiced curse against a stranger who has quickly become Pain In The Ass Numero Uno. 

"Mike, you 'member that Eastern European guy I was talking about?" Lester had started casually, as though discussing an old friend. "The one who was making moves in Liberty City a few years back?" 

"Not particularly," came the slurred response. 

"Well, he wants to hire you. Well, not you _specifically_, but I got a feeling you three’ll wanna be in on this one." 

Michael had peered at the clock on his bedside table then. 2:30 in the goddamn morning. 

"Nothing crazy," Lester had continued in that same laidback manner that was pissing Michael off for some reason. "Seems like your average retrieval." 

Michael was dumbfounded. He'd stared at the ceiling incredulously, pinching the bridge of his nose, a swell of annoyance rising up. Or maybe that was heartburn. "And this ‘average retrieval’ couldn't have waited until at least 6 hours from now?" 

"There's an important number you might want to consider," the other man replied with a mischievous lilt to his voice. Michael had learned to dread it. "One hundred and fifty thousand." 

"You're saying you woke me up for less than 35k apiece? Lest-" 

"Each," interrupted Lester. "I'm talking 150k each." 

Michael was fully awake at that point, his mind buzzing with questions, most of which Lester didn't have an answer to, which should have been Michael’s first clue that something weird was going on. 

The extent of the information to be had was that an untraceable number had contacted Lester directly, which was a rarity in itself considering all of the barriers Lester placed between himself and the outside world. The decidedly non-Eastern-European voice on the other end of the phone had offered Lester over half a million dollars to put a team together, and this team was to track down and collect..._something_, something as yet undefined, from “an old associate” of the client in question, a man named Niko Bellic. A man that Lester identified as having a finger in many a Liberty City pie, most notably as a hired gun for the mob. 

Once they had whatever it was that Bellic wanted, they were to hold onto the person carrying it “until further instruction”. The most important aspect of the job, the part that Bellic’s proxy had stressed the most, was that time was short. 

Based on what little information he was able to get out of the stranger over the phone, Lester surmised that Bellic had somehow made enemies of a small-time Liberty City crime family, the Pegorinos. From the sound of it, the Pegorinos were as eager as Bellic to take whatever this “old associate” had, so much so that the family may have already sent men to Los Santos. They had to work quickly, but tracking people was one of Lester’s many specialities - once Bellic came through with just a touch more information, Lester would have the target firmly in all of their crosshairs, no sweat. 

Lester didn’t seem too concerned with the apparent competition, either - “If they were anything to be worried about, the Pegorinos’d be part of the Commission. My guy in Liberty City tells me they were relegated to the kids’ table.” If Lester, paranoid old Lester, wasn’t worried, Michael knew he had no reason to be. 

It was all very compelling, the secrecy and the potential to make serious bank - it gave Michael that tingly, heady feeling of adventure. That feeling was what kept him in the business of thievery and bloodshed, after all, moreso than the money or anything else. Of course, there were several things about this particular job that should have made him at least a little nervous, things that he knew weren’t going to bother Trevor and wouldn’t have fazed a younger version of himself. But it only took him a moment to decide that he was feeling more curious than cautious. 

They’d been able to count on Trevor’s help right away, of course. Up for anything, as long as it intrigued him, money be damned. Michael supposed that even the cartoonishly, criminally insane have their uses. Frank was a different story, though, but Michael understood. Even after all they’d been through, the kid was still relatively green around the gills. He’d learned to trust Lester, just not unconditionally, not yet. 

But Michael’s buoyancy slowly waned and eventually turned to exasperation as the days rolled by with no sign of the promised further instructions from Bellic. The contradiction infuriated Michael, the dichotomy between the supposed urgency of the situation and the endless waiting for the go-ahead. It didn’t help that he didn’t have anything else in the works at the moment, nor that he didn’t handle boredom well. Neither did Trevor. If they didn’t hurry this up, Trevor would get distracted and fuck off back to whatever hell realm he inhabited, bathing in biker blood to keep him immortal or whatever. 

Almost a week to the day since they’d first gotten word of the job, Michael is gnawing his knuckle absentmindedly while mired in lunch rush traffic on the Del Perro. He’s cursing that European question mark for making them feel like desperate amateurs all over again when a restricted number lights up his phone. He practically dives for it and struggles to keep the frenzy from reaching his voice. 

"Lester, just the man I wanted to talk to. Whaddya got for me?" 

Lester gives a little laugh of what sounds like disbelief. "Mike, I've already talked to the other two stooges and they're good to meet. Get over to my place soon as you can. You're gonna wanna see this." 

\-- 

An hour later, the four of them are huddled around one of many screens in Lester's crowded command center, staring at a picture of a woman. Lester received the picture via text that morning, along with a simple message: _catherine rowan. you have 2 days._

On the monitor, the unexpectedly young and female target is shown in a covertly-taken photo and can’t be much older than Tracey. She’s on a crowded street somewhere in the city, but you'd almost be forced to notice her. The brim of her big straw sunhat is pulled down close to her big, startlingly green eyes, like she’s trying to keep the world out. Dark, thick lashes frame them in a way that makes her look at once virtuous and diabolical. Those eyes have slain giants of men and known it all the while. 

The dark hair that can be seen peeking out from under her hat is gathered into sateen waves that travel to lengths unknown past the shoulders that her floral dress is designed to show off. The skin they can see is emblazoned with pristine, pretty lines fashioned into flowers and skulls and all kinds of other shit, so much so as to be more than just a passing phase of teenage rebellion, but not enough to be a garbled mess of poor impulse control. Her oversized cateye sunglasses (more hiding, Trevor notes) are resting down on the bridge of her straight little nose, and she’s looking over the frames to check her watch with a harmonious expression, the likes of which none of them can recall having ever seen in the mirror. The two red strokes of her plush lips are drawn into a serene hint of a smile. Catherine Rowan certainly does not paint the portrait of a woman being hunted by the mafia. 

Trevor thinks she looks too nice, too _normal_, to be wrapped up in whatever plot this Bellic guy’s got going on. It’s laughable to imagine a woman that looks like this toting an AK, screaming obscenities, but Trevor supposes he’s seen weirder shit. Her eyes, big green magnets that they are, don’t hold any of the jaded but vigilant sharpness he’d expect of someone who supposedly hangs out with European ne’re-do-wells. But there is a sharpness there, of a sort. She’s not a total innocent, and Trevor’s looking forward to finding out why. 

He looks over at Michael, who’s studying the picture with an intensity that makes Trevor’s lips quirk up into a knowing smirk. He knows that Michael is noticing the tiny gold wristwatch on her delicate wrist, worn with the face on the inside. He knows that Michael is thinking this picture could have been a still from one of those classic Vinewood movies he loves. One where the suave rogue woos the sophisticated spy in a fantasy world with no place for the gruesome, merciless killer that lives in a desert trailer park. 

Michael clears his throat after a beat of silence, pulling them all back into dark, dusty reality, and turns to Lester. "So, uh, whaddya got on her, Lest? What's she carrying that's worth half a mil?" 

"I can spot at least two things." 

"Knock it off, T." 

"Mike, in answer to your first question, not much yet,” Lester replies with more than a touch of annoyance. “This Rowan girl is an internet nonevent. No LifeInvader, no Bleeter, no nothing. To the general public, she may as well not exist. No results for a reverse image search either." 

“What about an alias?” 

“Of _course_ I checked for known aliases,” Lester bites, shooting Franklin a chastising look and turning back to Michael. “As for your second question, well, that’s the most confusing part. I got nothin'. This Bellic guy has been anything but talkative, and his proxy wouldn’t give me anything. Or couldn’t, I don’t know.” 

Trevor raises his eyebrows, in awe that this well-proportioned little stranger is causing the biggest brain on the west coast this much trouble. He doesn’t say anything derisive about it, much as he wants to. Trevor has respect for anyone who can get under Lester’s skin. 

Lester drums his fingers on the desk and continues, “Clearly Bellic wants something she's got, or has access to. I find it a little hard to believe that she used to run with him, but appearances can be deceiving, I guess." 

Lester looks around the room and doesn’t expect the varying degrees of hesitation on the faces that look back. He’d thought Michael was the most gung-ho out of all of them, but something has apparently made him think twice, and Lester can’t imagine what it is. Even Trevor is quiet, probably contemplating something depraved. 

"Look," Lester sighs impatiently behind tented fingers, astounded that he has to convince a bunch of criminals to be criminals. "This Bellic guy means business. He bypassed all the usual obstacles to contact me _directly_, not to mention that we're all at least $30,000 richer if we don’t even _take_ the job. May not seem like a lot to you, but I got a few servers that could use an upgrade." 

“And Bellic said he’d tell the girl to expect us,” Michael offers, mostly to an expectedly sullen Franklin. Lester finds himself scraping the bottom of the barrel for patience. “Lester should be able to dig something up within a few hours. Should be a cinch.” 

"Nah, man, you can keep that shady-ass money," Franklin says with a short laugh, standing suddenly from his spot where he’d been sitting next to Lester, hands in the air. He moves to the bedroom door and turns back to them, eyes narrow. "I’m out. I ain’t worried ‘bout L’s skills, I'm just out. This shit fishy as hell, how do y'all not see that?" 

Lester waves a hand dismissively and pushes his glasses back up as he turns back to his keyboard. The other two just look at each other, and Franklin knows then that they’ll just end up doing this without him. He gives a pained sigh. “Look, there’s somethin’ seriously not right here. I ain’t gonna be responsible for deliverin’ this chick to some sex trafficking bullshit.” 

“Part of the deal is that the girl doesn’t get hurt,” Lester tries. “Why else would he tell us to protect her once we find her?” 

“Well, if he can find _us_, why can’t he do the same to her, tell her to come to us? Why do we gotta track her down at all?” 

Lester mutters under his breath, then says with finality, “It’s his prerogative, Franklin. Yours isn’t to question, it’s to do what you’re asked- what you’re _paid_ to do. And if you don’t wanna get paid, I got no problems divvying up your cut.” 

Michael just watches, glad he kept his developing misgivings to himself. He’s no stranger to combining women and crime, but then, he’s never seen anyone that looks like this particular woman. 

"C'mon, Frank," Trevor growls, a troublemaker's grin growing on his lips that always makes Franklin highly uncomfortable. "You're already here, aint'cha? That means you're just as curious as the rest of us. Why, you could buy Chop all the treats an’ spiked collars he could ever want." 

Michael doesn’t say anything when Franklin looks at him pleadingly, just raises his eyebrows. A few more moments pass in uneasy silence, nothing to focus on but the hum of countless machines and Trevor fidgeting with the switchblade he keeps in his boot. 

"Shit," Franklin sighs, leaning against the doorframe in apparent resignation. He runs a hand over his face and looks and feels older than he is. "_Fuck_. Alright. Just, I don't know, is it too much to ask for a little transparency? And I mean, shit, he can't do any better than a picture and a name?" 

"Luckily, I don't need anything more," Lester chuckles deviously. He shoos the others away and stretches out his fingers over the keyboard, eager to get to work. The other three file out of his bedroom and part ways in the street. Trevor is totally on board, which Michael expected - sometimes he's glad for Trevor's lack of scruples. Lester’s confidence is a big part of why Michael is quickly returning to previous levels of excitement about this job, but he wishes it were true of Franklin. With the time constraints this tight, he and Trevor will absolutely need the kid’s full support. 

Trevor returns to the Unicorn feeling elevated enough that he refuses the coke and good company offered to him by one of his favorite girls. He leaves her disappointed in the hall and whistles his way back to his office, swinging his keys around on his finger, thinking about Catherine Rowan. He doesn’t wonder about her too much, not in any meaningful way, not yet, but he can’t help but speculate on how a girl like that got herself into a situation like this. Wanted by the Italian mob, looked after by a Slavic fugitive, pursued by a Canadian mercenary. But Lester was right, appearances can be deceiving. Maybe she will surprise him yet. 

That surprise does indeed come, later, when Lester comes through with enough information for them to act on. As Michael predicted, Lester got it done before evening, and he delights in relaying his findings via conference call to his eager teammates. 

"She's listed in the Los Santos Department of Corrections database. As an _employee_." The three men on the other end of the call can hear the creak of Lester’s computer chair as he sits back, and each can imagine his self-satisfied grin. “I’d be willing to bet she’s got something incriminating on Bellic, that’s why he needs her hidden away. Something the Pegorinos could use against him.” 

"Looks like we got us a crooked cop to break, boys," Trevor purrs, his sneer clear in his voice. He swears that the thrill of the hunt, and god, the hunt for a _cop_, is good enough to put him off crank for the rest of his life. 

\-- 

After saying the last of her goodbyes, Catherine Rowan stumbles through the heavy metal security door leading out of Pershing Square Correctional Facility and into the heart of Los Santos. 

And it’s a soggy heart; instead of the usual blazing sunshine, she’s dismayed to be greeted with the incredibly rare sensation of rain against her skin. Dismayed because she knows that LS drivers seem to lose all knowledge of how to operate a vehicle when it so much as drizzles. Catherine retreats back beneath the awning, grumbling, and checks her watch. The Elysian is going to be a nightmare anyway, may as well be a wet one. She’s half-considering just abandoning her junk on the sidewalk and making a break for it when she hears a familiar voice coming from the entryway behind her. 

“Sorry, shoulda warned ya,” says kindly old Pete. Catherine turns to smile at him, her unabashed favorite out of the staff she oversaw up until today, as he joins her. He reminds her of her father, but only the good parts. “I forgot your office don’t have windows. Hey, you need help with that?” 

Pete gestures to the remains of the comically large sheet cake Catherine is awkwardly clutching. At one point, a couple hours ago, it had said “Thanks For 5 Years” before half the prison staff, including the warden, had decimated it. She’s trying to balance it in her arms along with her purse and the box containing the last of the stuff from her office. 

“Oh, Petey, no, I couldn’t ask you to go out in this,” she replies, indicating the rain with a jerk of her head. “It’s my own fault for trying to take everything in one trip.” 

“Not a bother at all, Miss Catherine. ‘Sides, you don’t even got an umbrella.” 

Catherine accepts the help with a touch of embarrassment, chatting happily with Pete under his umbrella as they struggle their way to the employee parking lot with overflowing arms. Approaching her car, she realizes she hadn't thought about how she was going to get the massive cake home in that tiny thing and it’s too late to dump it now. She and Pete settle for laying the heavy cardboard platter across the backseat. Catherine appreciates the staff’s gesture with the farewell party, but it’s a shame that most of the cake will go to waste. It’s not like she can share it with her dog. Well, not _too_ much, anyway, she thinks with a smile that crinkles her nose. 

“Really gonna miss ya,” Pete says in the bashful way he does when he's expressing anything remotely sentimental, one of the many things that endears him to Catherine. He stands back, having arranged her things with some effort in the cramped car, and rubs his neck. “I mean, me and the guys couldn’t be happier for ya. Bolingbroke’s a hell of a promotion, ‘specially for someone your age.” 

Catherine smiles warmly at the man she’s come to think of as a friend during their years of break-room lunches and night-shift chats. Pete’s right; Supervisor of Corrections Officers at the state prison _is_ a hell of a promotion, with a hell of a raise to match, but she couldn’t have been more ambivalent. When the warden announced it at this month’s staff meeting, so that Catherine couldn’t refuse, he’d looked almost smug as the barrage of slaps on the back and congratulations rained down on her. 

She shakes her head at Pete, expression stern. “We’ve talked about this. They’ve been trying to get rid of me ever since that thing with Marlow. I have no trouble believing that the Bolingbroke is just the first opportunity they’ve had to look good doing it.” 

That ‘thing’ involved a rather heated discussion between her and Warden Dalton several years ago in which she’d discovered that some guards were withholding an inmate’s inhaler because they didn’t like him and she’d promptly fired them. Not only had Dalton brought the guards back with restitution pay, he’d threatened to sack Catherine in front of her staff, completely eroding any begrudging respect they may have built up for her. Pete had gotten himself on the Corrections Board’s shitlist that day too, as well as the bad side of many of the other prison guards, when he’d defended Catherine’s actions. Their friendship had blossomed from that point, even as their standing among their co-workers had deteriorated. 

“And we’ve talked about _this_,” Pete counters, gesturing between them. “Your pessimism ain’t doin’ you no good, Cath. Just make the best of it and go make us proud at the state pen.” 

Catherine knows well that it’s a losing battle, trying to convince Pete that her suspicions have ever been anything more than conspiracy theory. He refuses to believe that anyone could want to wrong her, despite his having been in law enforcement for way longer than she’d been alive. She figures it’s some kind of generational difference, his unyielding deference to authority. 

But Catherine knows better. Since that first standoff, she's spent a lot of time pissing off Warden Dalton and Co. by being a vocal advocate of treating the inmates more like people than dirt. Which, unsurprisingly, led to increased morale among the prisoners and a kind of mutual reverence between them and her; a few of them even asked her to write to them once she left. 

Unsavory behavior toward Miss Catherine was not tolerated under any circumstances, a lesson that newbies often learned the hard way. (Prison is funny like that - justice is often much quicker out of court.) Not that she condoned any violence done in her honor - she’d been working with the prison psychologist to revamp the anger management unit when the promotion interrupted them. 

Catherine shakes her head again, trying to dislodge the disappointment that’s been clouding her typically sunny outlook on the future. She focuses on Pete instead, on the affectionate smile that’s all laugh lines and crow’s feet, one that she feels lucky to have been able to enjoy for as long as she has. It hits her how much she’ll miss him always having her back when she’s at Bolingbroke. 

“I hope you know I won’t die happy until I have another slice of Nan’s raspberry pie, so save some for me, would ya?” she requests with a squeeze of Pete’s hand. He beams at her. 

“She’ll be delighted to hear it. You know she’ll fix one up and call you over for dinner soon as I tell her you said that.” 

“She’d better. Now get inside, looks like the rain is picking up.” 

With a tight hug and promises to keep in touch, Catherine pulls out of the gated Pershing Square lot for the last time and watches the barbed wire and guard towers grow smaller in her rear-view mirror with a mixture of gloom and relief. She decides then that, whatever awaits her at Bolingbroke, she’ll keep doing what she does best - pissing off administration and disappointing her mother by making friends with convicts. 

\-- 

"Just so we're clear, this is not the time to act out your revenge fantasies for the LSPD," Lester's voice comes crackling in over the wireless earpiece connection they all share. "Bellic says this girl is very delicate and easily spooked. He was very clear that she's not to be harmed." 

"Oh, finally, something he _was_ clear about," Michael scoffs, slipping his hands into his leather gloves. He steps into the car he’d arranged for and signals for the other two to do the same, and they do, but something is off. Normally, Trevor would be hooting and hollering, overjoyed at the prospect of chasing down a mark in that ridiculously big Sandking truck he’s got, especially a mark who’s employed by the San Andreas justice system. But when he climbed up into the truck, he just nodded at them and drove off at a reasonable speed with not a hint of enthusiasm. 

The more Trevor is invested, the better their chance of getting this thing done - Michael just hopes Franklin’s bellyaching isn’t poisoning the well. Years of experience tells him immediately that that isn’t true. Trevor’s probably just coming down from something. There’s no time now to worry about it anyhow. They need to get a move on - the mist is turning to full-on rain and Michael doesn’t like the feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

At the very least, the plan is simple. Intercept the girl on her way home from work in a way that doesn’t attract too much attention, escort her to the oil derricks, and get her to cough up whatever it is this Bellic guy wants from her. Silver '98 Blista, careful driver, most likely to take the Elysian Fields Freeway on her way to the house she rents in El Burro. Using traffic cams, Lester would be able to pinpoint the girl’s location easily. The cars they were using had to be legally sourced from Franklin's buddy Hao - the less heat on their tails, the better. 

Michael laments the fact that they don’t have enough time to do this as carefully as he would’ve liked. But this Bellic guy’s tight deadline and lack of direction has forced their hand. They have less than 24 hours. It has to be now. 

\-- 

Madonna sings about taking a holiday on Non-Stop-Pop and Catherine nods along, as much to the beat as to the idea of packing up and going somewhere nice for a week or two. She’s got a month and a half before she starts at Bolingbroke and a nice bonus - an incentive to transfer that she couldn’t turn down - to spend between now and then. She should save it, she knows, but she needs something to lift her spirits. Las Venturas sounds great, or maybe she and Argus should go hiking in the Palomino Highlands, or- 

Catherine is pulled from her daydreams of rolling hills and wildflowers by the black SUV creeping up on her tail, so close that she can’t see its headlights. 

It really isn’t that surprising - one of the joys of living in Los Santos is sharing the road with all manner of entitled affluenzacs and other assorted nutjobs. It wasn’t any better in Liberty City, come to think of it. She would’ve laughed along with everyone else at this pathetic drizzle if she were in Liberty, but it was more than enough rainfall to trigger hysteria in the drivers travelling the Los Santos freeways. With a sigh, Catherine switches to the right lane to let this particular jerk get around her, expecting them to go roaring past in a pointless show of machismo. 

What she isn’t anticipating is the overlarge vehicle darting into the tiny space between her and the little red sports car that had been behind her, squeezing in dangerously close. The guy that this maniac just cut off lays on the horn while Catherine stares into the rear-view mirror in disbelief. 

The driver behind her looks not one bit remorseful - actually, he looks a little nervous. _Good way to get yourself killed, dude_, she thinks with a shake of her head. She’s prepared to pay the tailgater no more attention, happy to return to this new idea of taking a vacation, blissfully unaware of how drastically the next few seconds are going to alter the course of her life. 

The truck in front of her suddenly slows down tremendously, and there is no time to brake. Catherine instinctively signals left to avoid rear-ending this new idiot, only to find herself being stared down by the driver directly next to her. He’s matching her speed perfectly and shouting something, bright blue eyes boring into her. The man behind her is watching him intently, and so is the one in front. For the split second that she sees him in his rear-view reflection, the man in front of her has a gleeful grin in his eyes that is anything but amiable. 

Catherine’s gut tells her that this is not just road rage. She gets the distinct feeling that time is running out. 

She tears to the right, swerving around the still-slowing truck in front of her and gunning it up the shoulder. The screech of rubber and rending of metal and glass scream out behind her as she fishtails onto the nearest exit ramp. In the mirror, she sees that her narrow escape has combined badly with the slick roads - the SUV on her tail collided with the truck in front of her. All three cars she assumes to be part of the offensive have come to a dead stop. Traffic has immediately begun backing up behind them and a cacophony of horns and shouts fills the air, audible over the rain. 

Her rear window is a blur, but when she looks back from the top of the ramp, she sees the SUV whip around three lanes of traffic and speed off in the opposite direction. The truck has pushed other frantic drivers aside with ease and is shooting down the shoulder right toward her. For one horrifying second she thinks it will climb the ramp, but it rumbles right under the overpass, its tailgate crumpled and hanging on by a hinge. She can’t seem to find the third car and so decides it’s too dangerous to stop now. Catherine releases her iron grip on the steering wheel and dials emergency services with trembling fingers and shallow breaths. 

There is a lot she needs to do now and little time to do it. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really appreciate the kudos - I honestly didn't expect anything since this isn't a very active fandom, so you guys have surprised and honored me with the support.
> 
> Edit: I recently posted my non-artist's rendition of [Catherine and Gus](https://verbos-fanblog.tumblr.com/post/189255261848/catherine-the-main-character-of-one-of-my-gta-v), try not to judge me too harshly ◑.◑

Franklin knew his wrist was sprained without having to look. 

He’d sprained the same one as a teenager after a hard fall on the neighborhood basketball court and was familiar with that particular brand of nauseating pain. When the Rowan girl took off, he hadn’t had time to brake, and when he rear-ended Trevor’s truck, he’d instinctively put out his hands to protect himself. The airbag had punished him for that mistake.

Franklin runs a finger delicately across the surface of the splint and his wrist throbs mightily in response, leaving him briefly wondering whether he _ should _have taken up the doc on those painkillers. But only briefly, because he’d watched his mother slowly kill herself with that shit and he had decided a long time ago that that particular vice ended with her. Some bud would surely take the edge off, if only he could just go home already. The raised voices of Franklin’s companions are a faraway blur in his ears as he spins idly in Trevor’s desk chair. 

Immediately after the accident, Lester directed them to scatter before they called more attention to themselves. They agreed to meet back at the Unicorn to plan their next move once Franklin had gotten his wrist looked at. And, unsurprisingly, this little post-mission-failure meeting is turning out to be a lively one, but Franklin is a little too worn out to tune in. He hurts and he’s frustrated and he’s tired. He’s never really regretted getting involved with Michael and Trevor - he doesn’t regret it even now - but this shit is definitely turning out to be a bigger hassle than even he had anticipated. 

Franklin is pulled from his thoughts when he becomes aware of Lester typing more and more furiously on his laptop over on the couch, muttering under his breath while Michael and Trevor bicker by the door.

Trevor has a finger in Michael’s reddening face, and that vein that stands out when he’s angry has made its appearance on his temple. “Well, if we had just kept going and chased her down like I _ suggested, _ we could all be yukkin' it up over some beers right now, but _ you_, you soft-”

“Hold on. Hold on, hold on,” Lester interrupts. “Guys. There’s an APB out on Franklin’s SUV, the burner.”

That quiets them right down. They share bewildered glances and stand rooted to the spot.

“...What?” 

“It’s right here, in her name. She must’ve called it in right after it happened, while you guys were making the getaway,” Lester explains. He turns the screen around so they can see the big blue and gold LSPD logo emblazoned at the top of the report. “There’s even a description of Franklin and Michael, but it's vague enough that it could be any two random thugs in south central.” He snickers a little at their misfortune, but his expression sours quickly when he remembers that he shares it. "You three really screwed the pooch on this one, didn't you? There goes my reputation."

For the second time in as many days, the four men share a rare moment of stunned silence. Franklin sits forward, leaning his elbows on his knees, his leg beginning to bounce nervously. His stomach is souring. The urge to go home intensifies. “I told y’all. I _ told _ you. Somethin’ ain’t right here.”

“When I pulled up beside her, she looked..._ scared_,” Michael says as if in agreement, tone contemplative and eyes on the floor. “And then she reports it?” 

“That’s what I’m sayin’, man,” Franklin agrees immediately. “Either we got the wrong girl or this Bellic dude is lyin’ about telling her the plan.”

“Oh, no, it was definitely her,” Michael replies, remembering her big green eyes all full of horror. The whole thing put a leaden ball in his gut that he couldn’t define. He looks over at Trevor, whose mouth is hanging open in genuine astonishment, and shrugs. “You gotta admit, T, the kid has a point. It’s pretty suspicious.”

Trevor rolls his eyes and throws up his hands in exasperation. “Jesus fuck, do we need to stop and pick up some tampons for you girls on the way home? Who _ cares _ if she’s expecting us, or isn’t expecting us, or what the _ fuck _ ever?”

“Because I ain’t havin’ this chick’s blood on my hands, dog,” Franklin responds with a conviction that makes Trevor’s eye twitch. “Tell me you’d be fine with bein' the reason someone ends up some fuckin' sheikh's sex slave. Tell me to my face.”

Trevor knows immediately that he would not be fine with that. There are some lines that even he isn’t willing to cross, and he hates that right now. He hates being made to second-guess himself. So he throws it back in their faces.

"What, because it’s a pretty girl, you guys decide to grow a conscience all of a sudden? What the fuck is _ that _about, huh?" Trevor barks, and now all three men are looking at him warily. He thinks he detects a hint of shame in their faces. "What, you think women can't be just as bad as us, worse even? You forgot this bitch is a cop? We should be all too fuckin' thrilled to help this Slav asshole put her to the fire. Her and her whole team of fascists.”

"I ain't sayin' that," Franklin protests, but his voice is quiet.

"She's not a cop," Lester corrects dryly without looking up. "She oversees the corrections officers at Pershing. Has done since spring of '09. And that doesn’t explain why Bellic wants her kept from the _ mafia _.”

"Oh, thank you _ sooo _ much for clearing that up for us, Professor Crest!" Trevor sneers, and Lester flips him off. "Pig, pig wrangler, what-fuckin'-_ever. _ Look, we ain’t getting paid to psychoanalyze this chick or her Russian friend, we’re getting paid to catch her. So let’s fucking _ catch _ her, and get fucking _ paid_.”

Lester pauses his incessant typing and studies the others over the silver rim of his glasses. “I’m shocked and displeased that I’m saying this, but I agree with Trevor here,” he says, and Trevor thrusts out his arms in a _ see? _ gesture. “We can mull over the morality of it all we want while we’re counting our money.”

"We're getting off-topic here," Michael interjects wearily. He’s been leaning against the wall, massaging his temples, but he pushes off and rolls his neck like he does when he means business. "Lester, let Bellic know about the APB. Maybe that'll kick his ass into gear and get the ball rolling towards that 'more information' he promised us.”

"Done."

"T, F, we're in a holding pattern until Lest can figure out what the hell is going on. But we can't let her fall off the face of the earth. Gotta nab her before she gets outta Los Santos or we can kiss that money goodbye. God knows I’d skip town if I thought a bunch of maniacs were after me.”

“Oh, I bet you would,” Trevor purrs with that smile that’s all teeth and no humor, but no one pays him any mind. 

Franklin nods and stands to leave, beyond ready to sleep this bullshit off. Then something bleeps from Lester’s laptop, and everyone is on pins and needles again. They watch him scoff then grumble at whatever he’s seeing.

“Bellic, or whoever, they responded to my email already. The deadline is still firm. Whatever we’re going to do, we need to do it quick if we want this nonsense over with.”

Michael runs a hand through his hair and sighs through his nose. “Alright then, it’s a go on plan B. Time to do a house call.” 

Then, Lester holds up a hand. “Actually, hold on, there’s...there’s something else here. Bellic has a message for her. Says it’ll help. Wait, what the fuck is this…?”

\--

Two days later, still nothing. 

No sign of the Rowan girl and certainly no more guidance from Bellic, even though the “firm” 48 hour deadline has long passed. Trevor can feel the red mist descending as he jabs his phone screen, ending the thousandth useless phone call with Lester.

Lest can’t get a ping on her cellphone and there’s been no credit card activity. When Michael went to the Burro Heights address listed in the LSPD database (dressed as a meter reader, because of course he was), the little house was dark and empty. The girl’s neighbors reported that her car hadn’t moved since Wednesday evening, presumably since she got home from their run-in on the freeway. Bellic, that squirelly Slav fuck. He must have known that girl would put up a fight, why else would he be paying so much just to nab her?

Franklin’s been eager to write this one off as a failure and move on, but pure curiosity and a healthy dose of raw fury at being outfoxed by a goddamn _ cop _ has Trevor keen to see it through. That means that it’s greed (and maybe- no, definitely a dash of lust) motivating Michael, as fucking usual - he wouldn’t be able to stand it if Trevor got the girl on his own and took home the extra cash. 

Assuming there was anything left of the girl to _ get _ \- it had been almost a week, after all. The Parmesanos or whoever the fuck could have easily snatched her up by now, and god knows what they’d be doing to her. 

And just what was the deal with Franklin and Michael’s moping? So what, she’d looked scared? So what, Bellic might be lying about them running together? Franklin, he could understand. Franklin was green. But why had Townley finally decided to get all wishy-washy about doing things to people that they didn’t want to have done to them? Trevor knew the answer to that question just by looking at her. Michael always was an insufferable hypocrite.

Trevor is delighted to discover that all hope was not lost, however. It’s actually reluctant old Franklin who ends up finding her.

Following Wednesday’s fuck-up, Franklin had apparently invented a story about a certain dark-haired, green-eyed woman that owed his cab depot a great deal of money - a story he casually told a few of his more trustworthy employees. He’d even shown them the picture.

This morning, one of the cabbies happened to mention to the manager that he’d just dropped off a woman who looked an awful lot like the little she-devil in the photo. He’d taken her to the Von Crastenburg Hotel in Richman. 

“Frankie, you’re a fucking genius!” Trevor cheers into the phone as he sits up on the couch and pulls on his boots. “Not such a stick in the mud after all, huh?”

Lester immediately gets to work accessing the security cameras in and around the hotel while the rest of the team scramble to initiate their hastily-altered plan. His voice comes in smug over the earpiece. “We’re gonna do this, guys. Last night I had a dream I was on a beach in Belize drinking mai tais.” 

Screw mai tais and especially screw the beach. Trevor just wants to be downing a two-four and getting high as an astronaut in the comfort of his trailer.

Across town, Michael and Franklin hop into a white, windowless van, the kind seemingly manufactured for just such an operation, and take off for Richman. In his pocket, Michael carries a scrap of paper with the message that Lester had haphazardly translated from Serbian, the significance of which none of them could puzzle out.

\--

Catherine steps out of the air-conditioned lobby of the Von Crastenburg hotel and into a wall of dry July heat. 

She tugs on the leash and Argus stops sniffing the doorman to trot forward obediently, following Catherine across the sunset-painted street to Boulevard Del Perro. Every nerve ending is alight as she scans the faces of each passerby, one hand settled on the pepper spray in her purse. The hypervigilance is exhausting, and this unbearable heat wave only adds to the sluggishness, but she doesn’t see any other option than to stay alert. 

They found her once, they could find her again. Even with all her efforts at staying off the grid, any of these people could be them, or working with them. She’s spent the last three nights tossing and turning in overpriced hotel beds while visions of black SUVs and piercing blue eyes invaded her dreams.

As expected, nothing came of the APB. Once the unwritten rule of 48 hours was up, Catherine’s report had almost certainly been shuffled off to the overflowing LSPD filing cabinet known as the trash can. She’d be buying a one-way ticket to a psych eval if she tried to suggest that those reckless drivers had actually been plotting against her somehow, so she kept that theory to herself. The report had really been more of an attempt at scaring them off anyway, whoever they were. 

And it seemed to be working, knock on wood. The real riddle now was why she was having to scare off anyone at all. Assuming she wasn’t blowing the whole thing entirely out of proportion. Among the barrage of violent imaginings, the many heinous deeds that could be about to befall her if she slips up, are the constant questions. Replaying over and over of any sleight she may have committed against some well-connected inmates. Toying with the idea that there _ was _ no promotion, that Warden Dalton had simply wanted her out of the prison so that he didn’t have to bother hiring a cleaning crew after he blew her head off right there in his office. That would certainly show her for defying him. And knowing how tightly he had the State Prison Authority wound around his finger, he wouldn’t have even had to break a sweat covering it up. Now, that thought really _ did _ make her feel like she was thinking crazy.

Catherine has tried to do what her instincts and training have taught her about avoiding detection. Phone off, cash only, fake I.D., using cabs to get to a new hotel each night. Barring leaving the state, which she can’t afford, she’s done everything she could think of. And anyway, all of this is _ over _preparing, if anything, right? If they were sloppy enough to let her get away, during rush hour no less, how enterprising could these crooks really be? Thus goes the cycle of panic and self-soothing that’s swung her head around and around in tiresome circles for days.

They’ve walked half a mile before Catherine registers that they’ve strayed too far from the hotel and need to turn back. She can’t even muster the energy to be mad at herself for letting it happen. As if to make up for it, Gus is extra alert today, which she attributes to the throngs of costumed folks attending the comic convention being held at the Von Crastenburg that very same weekend. 

She’s grateful for the chaos that makes it easier to go unnoticed, and for the comfort that having a fiercely loyal ex-police dog at her side provides. Gus can’t seem to get comfortable, sniffing everywhere and needing convincing to let anyone in a costume pet him, so Catherine tries to focus all her nervous energy on getting him through the crowds without him stopping to investigate every vampire and ghoul they encounter. 

There’s no way to tell him that those aren’t the monsters she’s scared of.

\--

“Bro, killer cosplay! _ Bikini Bloodbath 4_, right? I mean, it could use a little more blood splatter, but-”

“Beat it, kid,” Trevor growls from behind the hockey mask. 

“Whoaaa, excellent impression! Now say the line where-”

Trevor whips around and backs the loudmouthed nerd up against the concrete wall he’d been leaning on with a litany of violent threats. Luckily, it’s enough to shut the kid up and send him speeding off in the opposite direction. Even then, the dumbass snaps pictures excitedly. 

Trevor feels his blood pressure rising as he goes back to scanning the crowds. He’s in position across from the hotel, nestled in the narrow space between two office buildings. Sweat rolls down his face into his jumpsuit and he’s thirsty as hell. It’s hard to breathe behind this stupid mask, but Lester figured the sloppy disguise would actually work in their favor with all this trekkie shit going on. So far, so wrong. He's going to wring Lester's fat neck. 

Trevor checks the time. If she doesn’t show soon, he’s going to have to actually go into the hotel and finagle his way into her room, but that has to be a last resort. The occasional attention of the nerd herd is easy enough to shake off, but it won’t do to have the staff on high alert.

As if on cue, an unmistakable figure emerges with some difficulty from the writhing hordes packing the sidewalks. Even though she’s trying to hide behind her hat and sunglasses, Trevor recognizes Catherine immediately. Who wears red lipstick when they’re trying to blend in? 

Other men’s eyes are glued to various parts of the woman’s anatomy as she walks past with a dainty black leash in her hand. It’s attached to a big white dog, which she struggles briefly to keep from trotting over to sniff Trevor. He hadn’t counted on the dog, but that will be easy enough to take care of. 

Trevor hangs back for a moment, watching the black lines up the backs of Catherine’s stockings shift against her calves as she retreats toward the hotel. He sees that his suspicions were right on - the woman is absolutely covered in a colorful mantle of tattoos, even moreso than Trevor, stem to stern minus the hands. _ What a waste of ink _, he thinks, and wonders whether pigskin makes good leather jackets. She peeks over her shoulder once or twice, but once she no longer seems concerned with him, Trevor licks his dry lips and begins to follow her at a distance. His brain supplies the familiar burst of adrenaline to his limbs and heart that he’s surely addicted to by now.

“Bingo,” he breathes over the earpiece. “Eyes on the target.”

Michael sits up with a start from where he’s been dozing in the driver’s seat of the getaway van. Franklin looks over at him from the passenger seat, busying himself with his phone.

“You good, man? You hear that?”

“Yeah, I got it,” Michael replies, shifting the van into drive. Both men slip on their ski masks. “Headed your way, T.”

“Would like to state for the record that target has an _ excellent _ ass.”

“Focus, T,” Lester warns from his position miles away, eyes darting between his many desktop screens. “Be ready to pull back if any more fanboys mistake you for a horror movie villain.”

“Pull back, my _ ass_,” Trevor snaps. “We’re doing this. To. Fucking. Day.”

Lester watches with bated breath as Trevor stalks the girl down a fairly deserted side street. The grainy black-and-white security camera feed makes it all kind of eerie. Definitely more _ Bikini Bloodbath 2 _ than _ 4 _. Michael speaks up over the headset.

“T, I need a location here.”

“Calm down, sugartits, I’m working on it. Alley coming up on the left, no one around. Gonna try to box her in there.”

Trevor picks up the pace, knowing this is probably his only shot. In just a couple blocks, they’ll emerge onto the crowded main street and it’ll be too late. He is _ not _ going to be the one to screw this up. Soon enough, he’ll be back in Sandy Shores happily forgetting that Bellic prick and his elusive lady friend. As long as Bellic actually comes through with the money, which is-

Without warning, Catherine stops and turns to look directly at him. The knowing dread in her eyes makes Trevor falter and for a moment he simply stares back. But just for a moment.

Trevor and his target spring into action simultaneously, her and the dog darting down the L-shaped alley with surprising speed and him tearing off after her, drawing his pistol out of habit and shouting into the earpiece for Michael to cut her off from the other end. 

When she sees the van pull in, Catherine loses her footing and topples to the concrete, landing hard on her hip. She twists around to see the towering man bearing down on her. Her mind is blank, spiraling with primal fear. 

“_Argus!_” she shrieks, and the white shepherd is on her attacker in the blink of an eye, snarling furiously. Catherine hears Gus’ victim bellow in pain, but her attention is on the two other figures now emerging from the windowless van that blocks the alley. She sees fierce blue eyes behind one of their masks and in that moment every nightmare becomes real.

“Catherine Rowan?” one of them asks, coming toward her slowly with his hands open to show he’s unarmed.

“_Call off the fucking dog!_” the stalker roars from behind her. “_Call it off or I’ll fucking shoot it!_”

Catherine can only swallow thickly.

“We work for Niko Bellic,” the blue-eyed man says, voice a little more urgent now. He sees her seize up and the color drain from her cheeks, and he wonders for a second if Franklin was right. That wasn’t the ‘thank god’ relief he’d expected. “We just want to talk. Could you please?” He gestures behind Catherine, where the third man is balanced precariously up on an air-conditioning unit, one leg dangling off but still just out of Gus’ reach.

Catherine issues the command hesitantly and the dog instantly drops to the ground, whining and barking anxiously. Michael and Franklin pull the quivering woman off the ground and bundle her into the back of the van with miraculously minimal struggle. Franklin has the foresight to scoop up the purse she’d dropped and rushes back to his seat, motioning violently for Trevor to get in. He clambers off the AC and follows the still-barking dog to the van, grumbling. 

When he tries to force the dog out, Catherine pleads with Trevor to let it stay. Desperate to just fucking go already, he relents with a groan and slams the back doors closed.

The van careens out of the alley, narrowly avoiding oncoming traffic, and heads for the scrapyard overlooking the oil derricks. The whole thing couldn’t have taken longer than four minutes, but they all would have agreed that it felt like an eternity. Michael guns it due east and the van explodes with noise.

"Why didn't your cabbie friend warn us about the fucking _ attack dog?_” Trevor shouts at Franklin, which starts an argument that Catherine can barely hear over the throbbing of blood in her ears. She begs herself to stay in control and try to think her way out of this, focusing on the feeling of the hard floor against her butt and the wall at her back. They found her, oh _ god_, they actually found her, and she’d been so careful. She wasn’t crazy. She wasn’t being paranoid.

When she finally feels composed enough to look up, Catherine sees that the man sitting on the wheel well across from her has removed his mask. The triumphant smirk on Trevor’s lips and burning anger in his eyes shoot a bolt of fear clean through her gut. He grips his injured hand so tightly at his side that the knuckles are paper-white, and hearty rivulets of blood run down his fingers to collect on the floor. A good deal of blood has already soaked into the sleeve of his grey boiler jumpsuit. Catherine can’t stop staring at it.

"You've caused me a lot more than a hundred and fifty grand’s worth of trouble, sweet pea,” Trevor growls, still out of breath, and Catherine’s gaze snaps to him. “But you're gonna make it alllll up to me by playin’ ball now, arent’cha?”

Instead of the meek little nod or whimper Trevor expects, _ wants _after all this struggle, his words seem to stir something in her and he gets a wild-eyed hellion in response.

“Good thing you’ll be getting all that money, then, because you owe me a hundred for the shoes and another hundred for the dress,” Catherine says with what Trevor feels is undue smugness given the circumstances, and he experiences the rare sensation of wanting to hit a woman. Franklin looks down and sees that the girl has indeed lost a high heel in the scuffle. Her green dress and stockings are torn and soiled with god-knows-what from her fall. 

“Oh, and don’t forget the cleaning bill from all the cake that flew all over my car when you maniacs tried to run me off the road.”

“That _ ain’t _ our fault,” Trevor says through his teeth. “If your friend had kept up his end of the bargain, I wouldn’t be bleeding all over the back of this shitty van.”

Michael knows he needs to de-escalate this, or Trevor is bound to do something stupid. His eyes flick up to the mirror and catch Catherine’s.

“Do you know why we came, Ms. Rowan?”

“I could give a shit,” she shoots back. “You must know _ some_thing about me if you were this committed to finding me, you must know I don’t have money.”

“Ahhhh, yes, but of course _ you _ know that’s not what we want,” Trevor says in as menacing a tone as he can muster while starting to feel lightheaded. The pain makes him angry, and he makes to move closer in an effort to intimidate, but backs off slightly when Gus bares his teeth. Franklin has to stifle a laugh. 

Catherine calms the dog by stroking his head and looks away, chewing a red-painted lip and trying to think quickly. Her mind keeps getting stuck on the mention of Niko’s name and the fact that he’s apparently alive and desperately trying to figure out just what the everloving fuck he has to do with all this.

“Ever since Wednesday, I’ve tried to think of every single possibility, and honestly I’m at a loss,” she admits after a moment. “I was trying to think of an inmate who’d want this done to me, but now…” She pauses, looking between the two whose faces she could see, searching them. “Now I’m wondering if you aren’t going to try to use me to get to someone in Pershing or on the Prison Authority. God knows they’ve got enough blood on their hands.”

“So you’re denying that you know Bellic, then?” 

Yes, she decides, she probably should.

“Who? I don’t-”

“This might jog your memory, then.” Michael hands Franklin the slip of paper from his breast pocket. All three men watch intently as Catherine unfolds and immediately crushes it in a trembling fist, eyes wide. 

_Срећн_ _о, лекар. _

_ -NB _

_Srećno, lekar. _

_ Good luck, doctor _. 

_ Fuck you, Niko Bellic_, Catherine thinks bitterly, pitching the paper to the floor and covering her face with her hands. In that moment she hates Niko as fiercely as do the three dumbfounded criminals who are watching her fight back tears like her life depends on it in the back of the speeding van.

\--

In an abandoned old warehouse on El Rancho Boulevard, Sal “The Snake” La Biscia is thrashing on the cold concrete floor, gasping for air and clinging fruitlessly to the single thread that constitutes the end of his mortal coil.

The others stand around him, some gaping, some looking on, all uneasy.

“Anyone else got anything to fucking say?” rasps the tiny redhead at the center of the circle. Her cigarette and her .45 send up plumes of smoke to collect like a stormcloud over their heads. “Anyone else wanna give me a reason? Huh? Didn’t _ god_damn think so."

She spits on the still-shuddering corpse and looks each member of the small group in the eye before disappearing into the office way back in the corner.

And that's the end of Sal “The Snake” La Biscia. He’s buried in the same pit as the man he killed not two hours earlier. 

The others had warned Sal about Angie Pegorino’s infamous temper. They’d warned him about what she would do to him once she found out he’d killed their only source of information in Los Santos, all because Sal thought the guy had looked at him funny. But Sal was young and dumb and now he was dead. 

Later, Rafaele and Luca, Angie Pegorino’s second and third in command respectively, stand out back of the warehouse in the humid twilight having a smoke and a laugh about how Sal’s head had gone all _ musciada _ on Marco’s expensive new shoes.

“Hey, uh, Raf,” Luca says in a suddenly hushed voice, shuffling a little closer to the other man awkwardly. He peers around before continuing. “Uh, you don’t think...if, if we can’t find this Rowan broad…" And he gestures being shot in the head.

Raf blows out a cloud of smoke and looks up at the darkening, starless sky. “I dunno, I ain’t been runnin’ wit’ the Pegorinos too much longer than you. All’s I can say is, Mrs. P wouldn’t be too thrilled about it, no.”

This doesn’t quell Luca’s fears any, but he only got bumped up to third in command just recently and he isn’t going to let that go to waste by pussing out now.

“You got nothin’ to worry about, though. We got enough outta the guy before Sal capped ‘im. This Assistant Warden guy, what’s-his-name, Daniels. I got a pair-a pliers wit’ his name on ‘em.”

Raf stomps out his cigarette and waits for Luca to take his last pull and do the same. He starts for the door and says over his shoulder, “C’mon. Sooner we take care of Bellic, sooner we get back to Liberty. Sooner we get back to doin’ _ real _ work." 

Luca knows what he meant - racketeering, forgery, the type of stuff one typically associates with working for a mob family. Luca himself had been promised a nice little slice of the drug-smuggling garbage disposal front if they got this right. The work that Angie Pegorino had _ said _ they were gonna be doing when they both got hired. The work they actually had some idea how to do. Not this mission for revenge bullshit they've spent the last few years slaving away for. And if Sal had popped that guy just a few moments sooner, they wouldn’t have _any_thing to go on now and Luca and Raf would be joining him in that pit.

Rafaele has already gone inside but Luca hangs back, craning his neck toward a high open window, through which Mrs. Pegorino's and Mr. Bell's argument can be heard. Enough already, Ang, he's saying. Forget the girl. Forget Bellic. This stupid vendetta ain't worth plugging half our guys over, not if we wanna have any kind of operation left when we get home. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall you saying you didn't even _ love _ Jimmy any-

Shut the fuck up, Phil, she's barking back. Doesn't loyalty mean anything in this century, in this country? Honor? Respect? You swore a vow to my husband, and so on and so forth.

Luca has lost interest and followed Rafael inside because it's the same shit that all of them have heard at least a dozen times since they got to this god-forsaken city. Being forced to share close quarters with the boss and her...partner?...has allowed them to witness the fruits of their labor beginning to wither on the vine. Not quite rotting, but well on the way. All that time, all that effort, all that money, and now Sal’s fuck-up had nearly cost them everything, cost _ Luca _ everything.

And if they _ keep _ fucking up, if Angie's steadily worsening habit of acting on her angry impulses is anything to go by, they don't have much more time left on this earth than Bellic does. But Luca doesn’t think about that; he told the girl he’s screwing tonight to call him _ capitano _ and he likes the way that sounds too much to give in to doubt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is always appreciated!
> 
> Come check out [ my Tumblr](https://www.verbos-fanblog.tumblr.com) \- I'm posting some Trikey art soon if that's your ship.
> 
> Thanks for reading, you rock ❤️


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I am so thrilled by the comments and kudos. You are all so kind and fabulous. Hopefully, there won't be such a long delay between updates now that I'm settled into my new job. It's been a crazy month. Anyway, enjoy! :)

_ Summer in Liberty City was always brutal; there was a reason why old movies always depicted wives and children packing up and fleeing for the north once June hit. _

_ At least the oppressive heat in Los Santos was dry. At least there the sun had the decency to warm your cheek before suffocating you and then bleaching your bones instead of sous-vide-ing you from the inside out from behind the clouds like a coward. And even when the sun was hidden away for the day, its influence could still be felt in Catherine’s tiny one-room flat. In combination with a broken AC unit that she was too broke to have fixed, this particular night had quickly become a sticky, soggy horror. _

_ The cheap drugstore fan did her no favors as she tossed and turned under the thin sheet her body demanded if she wanted to even attempt falling asleep. That’s why, when the sound of five frantic knocks blasted through the room, Catherine shrugged it off as a sleeplessness-fueled hallucination, if not her twat of a neighbor whose partying often left him forgetful of which door was his. Then, the knocks became slams, and that was that. _

_ Catherine’s anger drove her from her damp bed, ready to unleash a summer’s worth of frustration on whatever asshole had chased away any hope of sleep, but she stopped short when she heard a voice hissing her name between assaults on her door. A voice so familiar and yet so out of place here. A glance through the peephole confirmed her suspicions in her rapidly-waking mind. _

_ She dashed to cover herself with her robe and returned to the door, flinging it open to reveal Niko Bellic, dripping with rain. The tuxedo he’d had on earlier that day, the one she’d spent the entirety of Roman and Mallorie’s wedding ceremony admiring, was now rumpled and dirty beyond repair. A smattering of red spots stood out like a flashing neon sign on his starched white collar, like he’d walked through a mist of paint, and probably graced the rest of the formerly fine suit as well. Suddenly, she was terrified for him. Years later, she looks back and wonders what she might have done differently if she’d known this was the last time she’d see him. _

_ A breathless “What the fuck, Niko” was all she could manage as he barged his way in and closed the door behind him. The man scoured the small space without looking at her, the way he always did when he came to a new place. He held her easily in place by the arms as she continued her hushed verbal tirade. “Hey, no, what the fuck! How do you know where I _ live_? What are y-” _

_ “They killed Kate,” Niko finally blurted out, eyes locked with Catherine’s and his grip on her upper arms tightening enough to make her wince. Stunned silence was all he got in return, but he didn’t seem to care, as he’d already released her and was pacing the short length of tile that made up the kitchen. He picked up random objects and put them down as Catherine watched helplessly with a suddenly dry throat. “They shot her. They fucking... _ shot _ her. Right outside the church. Right in front of me and Roman and Packie and fucking everyone. They _ shot _ her. She’s fucking _ dead. _ ” _

_ Catherine swallowed her first instinct to ask after Roman and Packie, knowing Niko would be absolutely ruined and not walking around investigating her kitchen if something had happened to one of them. She thought instead about how she’d excused herself from the reception early because watching Niko and Kate laugh and touch and whisper made her too heartsick. It all seemed far away and so fucking selfish now. The light above the stove passed over Niko’s chest and again the blood on his collar was illuminated. Panic lanced her. “Who? Who shot- are you- Niko, are you gonna be okay?” _

_ Niko stopped his patrol of the kitchen then, rounded on her with sharp brown eyes in which a war between rage and grief was being fought, was always being fought. He seemed to come to his senses a little and really looked at Catherine, standing there weak-kneed in her robe and messy hair, looking frail in a way that did not suit her, and his wild expression softened some. He just looked tired. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry to do this but I need to lay low for a couple of hours. _ Please_.” _

_ And because she was always a fool for Niko, Catherine left him sitting in her ratty second-hand armchair, wringing her hands and fighting back tears, fear stretching her throat painfully. Niko had done _ something_, she knew. It was obvious by the way he alternated between watching the front door and the window, pistol in his lap. Her time with him was running out. _

_ As she climbed back into bed, mere meters away from him and knowing full well that sleep was not an option, Niko called out to her, softly. Orange haze from the streetlights cast his already strong features into severe relief, making him look ten years older. “You need to get out of town, Cath, okay? I might not be able to keep you safe from this. From, from anything. Not anymore.” _

_ He made no motion to explain what “this” might be because he couldn’t define it himself, but Catherine nodded anyway, greener-than-green eyes holding so much that was being stifled. He nodded too, once, and went back to watching with his leg starting to bounce, grateful for her in ways he could not articulate. Staring down at the street, Niko continued, “I can figure out some way to smooth things over with your school, I know a guy who-” _

_ “I dropped out,” Catherine mumbled, and exhaled with the kind of force that told Niko this was the first time she’d said the words out loud. “Yep. I’m, um. I just signed the last of the paperwork and bought my ticket today. I’m going back home.” _

_ Niko didn’t say anything, just looked at her sitting in the middle of her bed, arms wrapped around her legs. Trying desperately not to think of the two stark red blossoms that grew where Kate had been hit in the chest and stomach with bullets meant for him. The carmine fingers stretching out over her emerald cardigan, marking her for a death meant for _ him. _ How wet and dark Pegorino’s blood had been against the grass, dripping from the blades and turning the dirt to mush, all of it shining obscenely in the warm glow of the Statue of Happiness. _

_ Catherine was saying something about how he didn’t need to worry, she already nuked her hard drive, while he tried not to think of how the women in his life had suffered endlessly. How he was going to make it so that the woman sighing into the crook of her arm here in front of him would not suffer because of him anymore. In fact, as usual, it helped just to look at her, her pretty face makeupless and somber. A face that had only ever held sweetness when it turned upon him, and behind that, a mind full of wonder and selflessness for him that deserved so much more than a crooked, twisted bastard like him could ever provide. Kate had deserved more too. Just like his mother. He clenched his eyes shut and let his pounding head drop against the back of the armchair. _

_ Niko stayed that way, beating away green and red thoughts, until he heard Catherine turn beneath her sheets and wondered if she was really asleep. She’d been talking to him about her school situation and he felt bad because he hadn’t been listening to her further than allowing the sound of her voice to soothe him. Maybe if he’d ever really listened to any of the women in his life, he wouldn’t be sitting here scared shitless of the retaliation of a mob family that had just lost their patriarch. The thought struck him that she was comfortable enough to sleep like that, with him sitting there. She trusted him. _

_ Catherine woke with a start to the midday sun and the usual city soundscape of shouts and car horns streaming in through the window. On the kitchen table was a wad of cash big enough to cover the next few student loan payments that were about to kick in, and a note. A note that she kept in a dresser drawer for several years, until she finally felt strong enough to throw it away: _

_ Срећн _ _ о, лекар. _

_ -NB _

_\-- _

The sun is well on its way down out over the Pacific by the time the van pulls into the dusty lot, and the air has turned balmy rather than stifling. 

After the initial outbursts, the rest of the ride from Richman was eerily quiet, but Trevor lets into Michael as soon as their shoes touch dirt, berating him for not at least binding Catherine’s hands. Franklin urges them inside before Michael can continue the argument, but Trevor keeps prodding at him, and Catherine wonders how these men have made it this far. They’re not even paying attention to her now - she bets she and Gus could slip into the surrounding grey maze of industrial complexes and they wouldn’t even notice. 

_ Well done, _ she chastises herself as she’s herded out of her windowless dungeon, _ you were abducted by the criminal equivalents of Abbott and Costello. _ It’s easier to imagine these guys slinging pies than bullets, but that’s probably a point in her favor.

She sees that another prison awaits her, essentially a bunch of metal sheets fashioned into an approximation of a shack. Tetanus will kill her before anything else. As remote a location as you’re going to get within city limits, not even a blip in the desolate landscape of foreclosures and abandonment that make up Los Santos' outskirts. And what convenient access to the canals for body disposal.

Catherine takes a moment while the squabbling starts up again behind her to analyze her surroundings as she's been trained to do. The endless sea of junkers and parts that have fallen off of said junkers indicate a scrapyard of some kind, though she imagines the business that goes on here has little to do with cars. The brilliant oranges and purples overhead grab her attention and weave the Los Santos skyline into a cloudless masterpiece, mercifully distracting. Not at all like the moody greys she left behind in Liberty. The spidery beams of the Elysian Island bridge stand out in stark mechanical contrast to the warmth of the sky and cars pass along it at what seems to be a lazy pace from this distance, not realizing how free they are.

Catherine occupies her mind by breathing in the salt and rust and soil that make up the smell of home until Trevor grabs her roughly at the elbow and pulls toward the decaying building that looms over them. The sound Gus makes is none too pleased.

“I can walk perfectly fine, thanks,” the woman says sharply, and yanks her arm back to her side. “And why am _ I _ the one waiting for my kidnappers to catch up?” 

Trevor scowls but says nothing, turning instead to command the others to hurry the fuck up before stomping off toward the door. Catherine dares to take one last look at greater Los Santos glittering before them, so deceptively close, before she reluctantly follows at his back.

Despite the makeshift tourniquet Trevor made by tearing a strip off the hem of his pant leg, the man’s sleeve is almost entirely sodden with dark red now, and Catherine can’t help cracking a twisted, proud little smile. She stows it before anyone notices and turns her eyes down to Gus, ever in stride at her side, and pats his head while those sweet brown eyes search her face for her next command. Finding none, the dog returns to scanning Trevor.

The room at the bottom of the stairs is cramped and dark with just one naked, yellowed lightbulb hanging down for light. Junk and machinery in various stages of disrepair line the walls, leaving only a small amount of space to move around in.

Catherine sneezes and groans, “Hey, I’m not the criminal mastermind here, but I’d dust the place every once in a while if I wanted my victims to actually be able to talk to me.” No one seems to hear her, but Franklin does shoot her a reassuring smile that throws her for a loop before nudging her gently the rest of the way down the stairs.

Michael motions to a folding chair, somehow ominous, situated just below the gently swinging lightbulb and Catherine’s sarcastic monologue is silenced as she is struck by the notion that this room has been used in this very manner god knows how many times. She suddenly feels quite small and not so witty. The lack of obvious blood stains on the floor is probably a good sign though, right? 

Trevor clears his throat impatiently and Catherine knows she has no choice but to obey if she doesn’t want to get yanked around again, or worse, maybe. She directs her nervous dog to sit at her side and tries her best to soothe him while keeping an eye on the rest of the uneasy group as they arrange themselves on the edges of the dim halo of light. The data from escaped abduction victims is scarce, but from what she knows, it doesn’t seem like they’re going to hurt her. At least not for now.

Now that their masks are off, she can get a better look at her captors. The one with blue eyes smoothes his dark hair and lights a cigarette, and when he lifts his head to exhale, she sees middle-age and long-suffering in the lines of his face, but not the malice one might expect of a mercenary. The chink in Catherine’s armor, created a moment ago by the young man’s smile, grows a little wider. 

He’s the one who’s been quietest, and looks closest to her age. He’s also given her the least to worry about. He only observes with what looks like studious interest as Blue Eyes rolls his neck across his shoulders and talks too low for Catherine to hear.

And then there’s _ that _ one. The one slouching on the furthest edge of the light, barely visible, hissing and gritting his teeth as he rolls up his sleeve to inspect his wounded arm. He reaches for a filthy rag on top of a toolbox to wipe at the blood now drying on his skin. As he does that, succeeding mostly in just smearing black streaks of mystery gunk in with the red, Catherine knows he is watching her intently. 

He’s difficult to make out over there, but she can feel as much as see his dark, deep-set eyes evaluating, judging, calculating. He feels the most like the criminal ilk she’s used to, truly dangerous. Even so, she’s not used to being made to feel so vulnerable...like prey. Catherine realizes that the danger that goes with being around even the most deranged inmates pales in comparison to this. There are no armed guards or bars between them. If this man decides to make her pay for his injury, even Gus wouldn’t be able to stop him.

Michael grabs a nearby folding chair with his free hand, turns it around, and takes a seat facing her. He hooks a finger on his collar to loosen his necktie a bit. "So," he starts awkwardly, doing his best to keep his tone casual. "Uh, ’Doctor’.”

Her doesn’t know what to make of Catherine’s unreadable expression, but she’s calm, and at least she’s making eye contact. At this point, Michael will take whatever he can get. He warms up the part of his brain that controls the slick, charismatic banter and feels a little sick with himself when he realizes he’s been picturing his scene in his head for weeks now.

“Our mutual friend Mr. Bellic is paying us a frankly suspicious amount of money to track you down. Says he wants us to protect you.”

Michael isn’t expecting her to laugh, however stilted it comes out. Her previously placid face has shifted to open-mouthed disbelief. “Oh, is _ that _ what you call that? ‘Protecting’ me?” She sits back against the chair and folds her arms across her chest, almost defiantly, narrowing her eyes at him. “That’s good. That’s real good. I’d hate to see the plans that got rejected if ganging up on me on one of the busiest highways in the world was the one you went with.”

Trevor grits his teeth. Normally, it does his heart good to see Michael getting buried under massive piles of shit, and seeing it done to him by such a captivating little thing _ should _ be sending him over the moon with spiteful joy. Michael’s face right now is just priceless, too; Trevor can see him coming to terms with the idealized version of this woman he’d no doubt created in his lecherous mind being shattered and replaced by the mouthy brat that Catherine Rowan is turning out to be. But then again, it isn’t meat from _ Michael’s _ arm that’s currently being digested in the belly of her mutt.

Michael taps the ash from his cigarette right onto the floor and crosses his ankles under his chair. He’s no stranger to this kind of verbal song and dance act. He thinks it’s probably his enjoyment of it that’s kept him alive and useful. “You didn’t let me finish. The protecting part comes _ after _ the part where you give us whatever it is Bellic wants from you.”

“I haven’t talked to Niko since, oh, the end of 2008,” Catherine replies simply, with a shrug, making it clear that she intends to be a pain in the ass for as long as possible. “So I have literally zero ideas about why he would send a fucking _ hit squad _ after me.”

Michael starts to object, but Trevor beats him to it.

“Well, we _ ‘literally _ ’ don’t believe you, _ officer_,” Trevor mocks, crossing his arms in kind. “Cut the shit and give us what we want.”

“_‘Officer’? _ I’m not-” Catherine scoffs, but Michael is the one that jumps in now, resigning himself to taking the lead here. Trevor’s antagonizing and the kid’s objections are going to keep them here all fucking night. He resists the urge to massage his temples.

“Look. Miss Rowan. Catherine. I think I already made it clear that we just wanna talk. We ain’t interested in hurting you and we most definitely are _ not _ a hit squad, kid.”

“Oh, not unless we have to be. Or maybe we just ride this thing out and see if the mafia doesn’t take care of that for us,” Trevor adds in what is probably an attempt to inspire fear and therefore compliance, but just makes Catherine roll her eyes at the edginess of it. Trevor feels another in a long series of spikes in his blood pressure. Franklin’s forehead hits his palm audibly. 

“_Not _ helpful, T,” Michael hisses, glaring daggers.

“You act like this is the first time I’ve been threatened by someone like you,” the woman says flatly. “You _ do _ know I work in law enforcement?”

Michael shakes his head at Trevor to discourage any retort he might have been preparing and turns back to Catherine with a softer expression that he hopes doesn’t look too desperate. He can almost physically feel the bags under his eyes getting heavier. 

“Look, kid, it’s been a long couple weeks. Bellic can’t seem to answer basic questions like ‘what’ and ‘why’ and we’re all a little _ on edge_.” He nods back toward his combative partner as if to explain his hostility. “We want this done with just as much as you do. So, please, I’m beggin’ ya, if there’s anything you can think of that he might not want the Pegorinos to have, now is the time. I’ll get down on my knees if I have to, I ain’t above much.”

Catherine smirks a little at the man’s attempt at humor and receives an oddly fatherly smile in response. She wants to laugh at how simple this guy clearly thinks his request is. The amount of smiling going on could just be an interrogation tactic, and she’s pretty sure she does _ not _ want to see the “bad cop” version of this routine. So she closes her eyes and lets the brief but chaotic year she knew the Serbian felon swirl around in her head. Memories, some cherished and some hated, play in fast forward as she grasps desperately for _ anything _ that might serve as an explanation for the fact that she’s being held in a crusty old basement by a bunch of freelance kidnappers, apparently on Niko’s command. 

She thinks about how, as much as they’ve made her life a paranoid hell the last few days, they haven’t actually done anything to _ hurt _ her - in fact, aside from the one that Blue Eyes had called “T”, she has to admit they’ve actually been quite gentle. That’s what pushes her through the murky dredge of emotions she’s been successfully not dealing with for the last few years. Catherine forces herself to meet the eyes of her captors while she addresses them in earnest. 

“Whatever I say here, I have to know that none of it will be used to hurt him. I _ have _ to know that, or this day is about to get a whole lot longer.”

Her conviction gives Michael a little pause before he offers the halfhearted consolation that even if for some reason they _ did _ want to hurt their current employer (and Michael can think of several good ones), Bellic may as well not exist with how well he’s got himself hidden. For the first time maybe ever, Michael is glad Lester hasn’t shown up yet, otherwise he’d have been met with indignant protest and they don’t have time for it. 

That seems to have worked. When Catherine finally speaks, it’s reluctant, halting. “I...I wrote a paper...about him. Well, sort of about him. While I lived in Liberty City. For my doctoral dissertation.”

“Bull_shit _,” Trevor snorts immediately. “All this because of some fucking book report?”

The woman throws out her hands in frustration with her eyes wide, startling the panting dog beside her. “Look, I don’t get it either, but that’s all I can think of, alright? I made damn sure that nothing I wrote could have ever been traced back to him, much less...did you say the _ Pegorinos? _ As in the _ mafia _ family?” She whirls from Trevor to Michael as though she just now processed what he’d said. Trevor doesn’t mean to, but the way the light catches the lines of the tattoos on her chest as she turns has him following them as they stretch and contract with her shallowing breaths. He swallows instinctively when his mouth goes dry.

Michael holds up his hands, gesturing for her to calm down. “Keep your head on straight, Catherine, you got nothin’ to worry about. Bellic wants you kept _ away _ from them, remember? That’s what us three’re here for.” Catherine slumps back against the chair again, directing her nervous energy into smoothing her skirt and then the dog’s ears. 

“_That’s _ very reassuring,” she grumbles.

“Like I said, Mr. Bellic has been real dodgy about the specifics. Our recon guy’s running theory is that you have some kind of, I don’t know, sensitive information on one or all of them. Working for the LSPD and all,” Michael explains, his voice rough with tobacco and sleepiness. He takes a long drag from his cigarette, holds it as long as possible, and gives a satisfied little hum as he exhales. Trevor makes a big show of coughing and waving away the smoke but Michael ignores him. “If you think it has to do with this paper, then...”

Catherine isn’t really listening to the rest of that sentence, knowing her ill-fated dissertation has nothing to do with this. That knowledge only makes her search her head more frantically. Did she ever oversee any former Liberty City mobsters at Pershing Square? Work on any of their cases as an intern? Then, a _ Liberty Tree _ headline flashes to life in her mind’s eye: **HEAD OF PEGORINO CRIME FAMILY SHOT TO DEATH BY UNKNOWN GUNMAN ON HAPPINESS ISLAND**. She distinctly remembers seeing it and distantly wondering if it had anything to do with how closely Niko watched the door on that last night she saw him. The ache that usually accompanies thoughts of him is stifled with swift, practiced effort.

“Pegorinos,” Catherine breathes, then shakes her head fervently. She can feel her voice threatening to waver. She wonders whether she is going to utterly humiliate herself in front of these men by getting emotional, but she sees the youngest man’s sympathetic look and that holds her together for the moment. “The last time I saw Niko was the night Jimmy Pegorino was killed and I...I wasn’t even a hundred percent sure he was the one that did it until...well, until just now. But, but that has nothing to do with me. I only heard about it on the news. ”

Trevor _ tsk_s from his seat on a battered old office desk. His long legs swing nonchalantly as he says with great flourish, “What a guy, this Niko, huh? Pisses off the mob and leaves you to deal with the fallout. Ugh, _ men, _am I right?”

“So wait,” Franklin interjects while Catherine glowers at Trevor. He just grins in response. “What does that have to do with a dissertation?”

“If...if what you’re saying is true,” Catherine starts slowly, putting it together as she talks. She feels the gazes of the others, nearly crushing her with the weight of their anticipation. A deep breath fills her lungs to capacity before rushing out in a pained sigh. “Okay, look. Long story short, I was writing the paper about the state of LC’s criminal justice system - which is a wreck, as you can probably guess - and I strong-armed Niko into feeding me information. Since he was, you know, very _ experienced, _ from the civilian side of things. And when I did a little digging of my own, I found out that _ some _ of the stuff he told me just _ happened _ to line up with some moves the Pegorinos were making.”

With her last words, Catherine instantly feels like she’s made a mistake. She knows what criminals do to narcs. She scrambles to cover her ass. “But we’re talking _ very limited _ information. No names, no locations, ever.”

"So that's it, right?” Franklin ventures. “You published a paper about what they was up to, so now they wanna get back at you?"

“No, listen-”

“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes,” Trevor sing-songs, all through that aggravating grin. He is rewarded when Catherine’s imploring eyes go steely. Seeing her brazen attitude unraveling before him is a unique pleasure.

Michael gives his friend a sideways glance. Trevor isn't normally this antagonistic with women. In fact, Michael’s surprised that Trevor isn't tripping over himself to hit on her. Then again, she isn't frumpy and nearing 70. He feels justified in his earlier guess that Trevor is coming down off something.

"Except that's _ not _ it, because I never published it,” she replies with a hard edge to her words, ignoring the little voice inside her that’s yelling about how getting emotional is only going to give this bastard some sick thrill. She’s sitting on the edge of the chair now, fighting the urge to stand against this asshole’s continued accusations that she somehow brought this on herself. “I didn’t even _ submit _ it. I dropped the Ph.D. program and came crawling back to Los Santos. I melted my hard drive with a _ blowtorch _ , for god’s sake. It’s at the bottom of the Humboldt River. And anyway, even if I _ had _ put out some kind of exposé on the Pegorinos, that was _ six years _ ago-"

All eyes are forced to the door at the top of the stairs when it creaks open without warning, and three of five tense bodies relax when Lester Crest appears. 

“Nice of ya to finally roll by, Wheels, but we got it all under control here,” Trevor says, jerking his thumb toward the woman. “This gal’s been a veritable _fountain_ of useful information, hasn't she, fellas?”

The echoes of Trevor’s crowing are perforated by the clang-shuffle-clang of Lester’s slow descent.

“Anything?” Franklin asks as they all watch the older man make his way down the stairs.

“From Bellic? I suspect we’d all be more likely to be collectively struck by lightning.” 

Lester reaches the ground floor, shooing away Michael’s help, and totters over to where Catherine is sitting. She turns her eyes up to him, gut twisting itself into knots, but he’s too busy beaming down at Gus. The dog sniffs the stranger’s proffered fist, and Trevor can be heard sucking teeth when it happily accepts Lester’s pets. 

“So?” asks Lester bluntly, turning to the others with both hands on top of his cane. “What’s got the Pegorinos’ panties in a bunch?”

Catherine is intrigued by how disinterested he sounds, in a way that suggests he’s been doing this stuff the longest out of all of them. Though she doubts the portly, wheezing man has been on the front lines in a while. He won’t be the one to incite violence here. If anyone, it will be the one picking at his nails on the desk, chewing them probably to the quick, all while continuously raking his eyes over her.

Franklin chimes in. “That’s the thing, man. I’m pretty sure she’s got nothin’.”

Lester turns back to the woman in the chair, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “_Nothing _? No files, passwords? Safe combinations? Treasure map, maybe?”

“I just got done telling them: I wrote a dissertation that kind of but didn’t really involve the Pegorinos. Niko gave me a little help, but not enough to warrant all of _ this _,” Catherine replies, gesturing to the makeshift interrogation chamber around her. Lester starts pacing, rubbing his chin pensively. 

When he doesn’t say anything, her tone becomes increasingly exasperated. “Look, you have every right not to believe me, considering who I work for. But I’m telling you, that hard drive is toast. And any specifics I know about any of them, I had to work out for myself. I had to spend hours in front of computers - some of which were illegal for me to be in front of, I might add - to get as much as I did. And I don’t even remember half of what I-”

Lester stops his meandering, looks her up and down purposefully, then turns to the others expectantly. When he gets only puzzled expressions in response, he rolls his eyes and sighs dramatically. 

"You idiots. You complete and utter embarrassments. Bellic didn’t give us any more information because there _ is _ no more information. She doesn’t _ have _ anything. She _ is _'the thing'."

Lester watches them look at each other sidelong while the metaphorical lightbulbs go off. Then he looks down at Catherine to find that she doesn’t appear any less baffled. He grumbles something to Gus about being the only thing keeping these sorry excuses for criminals alive as he bends down with some effort to rub the spot between the dog’s ears.

“Your dissertation, as ground-breaking as I’m sure it was, has nothing to do with this,” Lester says with a smirk, his petting the dog bringing him uncomfortably close. He watches Catherine’s eyes dart around his face doubtfully before Michael’s standing and stretching and groaning draws her attention away. 

“Bellic kills Pegorino, Pegorinos use his, uh, ‘old associate’ to lure him out, Pegorinos kill Bellic,” Michael muses, stroking his stubbled jaw, then looks at Catherine with a hint of amusement. “Guess Bellic didn’t want to freak you out by telling you the mob was after you. Knew you were a big enough flight risk as it was.”

Catherine isn’t sure what he means, what any of this means, but it sure as hell sounds like they’re saying the mafia is trying to use her to get to Niko, and that _ cannot _ happen. She knows what retaliation looks like to these monsters. Her chest gets tight and fluttery just like the last night she saw him.

“So, we’re just taking all this at face value, then,” Trevor mutters under his breath, but Catherine hears him.

“Like I said earlier, you probably already know everything about me. You know I don’t have anybody to tell that stuff to anyway,” she insists. She feels exhausted and looks it. Michael almost feels bad for the kid. Franklin certainly does.

“What we _ know_,” starts Trevor, suddenly striding toward her and feeling the others come quickly to attention. 

In that moment, Trevor sees exactly why Michael had been so affected by the fear he’d seen in her eyes. He can’t explain it, but the way she’s looking up at him right now, like he has the power to just completely ruin her...it makes him feel like a bully and a coward. The fight goes out of him all at once. For the second time today, with those eyes on him, Trevor falters, and he hates it. He no longer knows, maybe for the first time ever, who is actually in control.

Franklin breaks off whatever Trevor had been trying to accomplish, stepping in front of him with his hands up even though the older man has stopped in his tracks. “A’ight, a’ight, look. Do we gotta figure out all this shit right now?” He looks around at the others, brows knitted. “I mean, I’m tired as hell and I don’t wanna talk about this no more.”

Catherine nods, still looking a bit shaken. “You and me both, buddy.”

With surprisingly little resistance from a Trevor who has gone mysteriously quiet, it’s agreed that they’ll continue the conversation tomorrow. Lester reasons that, until they get word from Bellic or the Pegorinos show up on their radar, Catherine is probably safe in the city. At the very least, she’ll be fine for the night. Michael offers to keep her at his place, empty as it is, until then. He quite easily blows off Trevor calling him a sex pervert. In Michael’s mind, she’s much safer in his hands than in Trevor’s. 

On the silent ride home in Michael’s Tailgater, Catherine looks only out the window, chin in her hand. She’d protested at being forced into their custody, of course, but seemed to quickly recognize that there was no point in fighting. Now, she’s just sulking. It’s easy for him to forget that she’s older than Tracey. When Michael hazards a glance over at her, he doesn’t see any tears and decides that’s a good sign.

“Hey, kid,” he ventures. She only grunts in response. “I’m sorry about the dog.”

Michael had been adamant that Amanda would not tolerate the presence of a dog, that she would know one had been in the house immediately if..._ when _ she came back, so Gus had to go with Frank. Catherine had seen the last shred of her defense driven away in the backseat of a stranger’s Bravado and felt pretty powerless to resist after that.

Catherine meets Michael’s eyes then, and where he expected anger he only sees weariness. “And I’m sorry I put up such a fight,” she says, and for once, she sounds pretty genuine. “You guys were just trying to do your job and I’ve only been making it harder. Just wish I’d known sooner.”

The silence returns, a bit less uneasy than before. Michael goes back to wondering exactly what was going on between Bellic and his “old associate” until she interrupts his thoughts.

“You know, a hundred and fifty thousand isn’t much for something like this.”

Michael laughs humorlessly. “Tell me about it, kid.”

\--

“This isn’t a house, it’s a _ castle_!”

As soon as Michael had opened the double doors, Catherine had set down her purse and her one remaining shoe and immediately set about wandering and audibly marveling at every little piece of decor. It was like she’d never seen Spanish Renaissance architecture before. 

For the past half hour, Michael has heard his new houseguest scurrying from room to room downstairs while he makes sure the guest bedroom across from Tracey’s room is ready. When he peeks out the window now, he sees her out in the backyard, shadow cast out long over the dark green lawn, gaping at the tennis court.

The guest room hasn’t been used in years - not as a bedroom at least. At some point before his life exploded, he’d wanted to turn it into a home theater, a place to display all his classic Vinewood memorabilia, as evidenced by the framed movie posters on the wall. Amanda had been staunchly against it, however, as if they’d ever had anyone stay overnight that Amanda wasn’t inviting directly into Michael’s bed. And so the room has been caught in limbo, halfway between a bedroom and a storage bin. At least there’s a path from the bed to the door.

“Hey, kid,” he calls from the top of the stairs. Catherine appears immediately, and the look of shameless excitement on her face makes him laugh for the first time that miserable day. “C’mere so I can show you how to work the shower.” 

She takes the stairs in twos just like the kid Michael just labeled her and looks up at him somewhat bashfully when she reaches the top. “Sorry, I’ve never been in a house this big.” Then, with a playful little smile, she jibes, "I guess crime really does pay, huh?"

Michael barks out another laugh, this one more surprised. Catherine’s back to the cheeky little punk he pulled off the street earlier. When he searches her eyes, he’s pleased to find that not a hint of fear remains for him. Though, from what he can tell, she probably isn’t scared of much for very long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4 is ~75% done - I had to split it off from this one because it was getting too long. Please continue to bless me with your thoughts on this! I'm really enjoying my time with it and I hope you are too. :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friendly reminder that you are cool and I appreciate you for reading my incoherent ramblings. :)

Of all the things Franklin and Trevor are expecting when they open Michael’s monolithic front doors the next afternoon, Packie’s outburst is not one of them. 

They’d called the Irishman over on Michael’s request, who appears to be plotting something that calls for dumb muscle. They discover in Michael’s foyer that, apparently, that dumb muscle has a heart. When Catherine appears in the kitchen doorway to greet them, the Irishman stops dead in his tracks and does a double-take like something out of a cartoon.

“Ho! Whaddya know, Saint fuckin’ Catherine!” he booms, his voice echoing startlingly in the cavernous room. “Talk about a blast from the fuckin’ past! What the hell are you doin’ on  _ this _ side-a the country?”

When they look to Catherine for explanation, neither Trevor nor Franklin can find it in themselves to do anything besides stare as her face morphs into something between shocked and ecstatic. 

“ _ Packie? _ Patrick McReary? You stalked me all the way out  _ here? _ ” 

Despite the accusation, her voice is full of laughter too, the first that any of them have heard from her. Just to look at her in all of her put-together prettiness, Trevor would have expected something a little more melodic, but her laugh has a bit of a rasp to it, almost like a smoker’s. Then she squeals, further cementing Trevor’s rapidly forming conclusion that this is not the same cantankerous little punk they stole off the street yesterday. 

Catherine pads barefoot toward their hired hand and Trevor sees Franklin’s jaw drop when Packie opens his arms to her in an oddly familiar way and she fits right in, squeezing him hard. Trevor sees and knows all too well the bittersweet sting of meeting a friend thought to be long-lost.

“So she  _ does _ have a setting other than  _ enfant terrible _ ,” Trevor says with a chuckle, crossing his arms and taking in the joyful (and loud) little reunion. Franklin just shrugs and adjusts his backwards ballcap. He already looks done.

Michael enters from the kitchen at the sounds of Catherine and Packie fussing over each other, ready to calm whatever storm she’s brewing up now, but he quickly adopts a confounded expression similar to his friends.

Michael whistles and stuffs the hand that isn’t holding a glass of scotch into his trouser pocket. “Je _ sus _ , Rowan, exactly how much of LC’s detritus did you befriend?”

Catherine steps back and squeezes Packie’s arms with great, soft fondness in her eyes before flashing Michael an impish grin from behind a curtain of dark hair. “Who, this guy? I guess you didn’t hear me. He’s a stalker.” She tugs at the sleeve of Packie’s jacket and guides him toward the living room.

“Surveillance!” Packie corrects indignantly, trailing behind Catherine with a dopey look on his long face while she continues to assault him with questions that he barely has time to answer before the next one hits. 

“How are Roman and Mallorie? My  _ god _ , I miss those two.”

“Last I heard…and y’know they have a daughter now, they named ‘er after Kate…and...”

The conversation fades, and Michael beckons Franklin and Trevor into the kitchen before they can think too much about what just happened. Trevor points after the two very unlikely friends, who can now be heard babbling away on Michael’s couch.

“Wait a second, don’t we kinda need him? Isn’t that why Frank bothered to pick him up in the first place?”

Michael waves Trevor’s question away, fancy-looking scotch decanter already in his hand the moment they reach the kitchen. Trevor scoffs when he sees the engraved ‘M’. 

“Nah, we can get him up to speed when Lester gets here. ‘Sides, I already got that porcupine’s quills in my snout today.” Michael pours himself something halfway between a shot and a pint and stares into the glass as he swirls it around, one corner of his mouth quirked up. “When I tried to ask her exactly how she managed to use up all my hot water this morning, I got a lecture about how after all I’ve put her through, she deserves to take as long and as hot of a shower as she wants.”

The strange intimacy of the little anecdote hits Trevor in a weird way, and now Michael is trying to hide a dumb look behind his glass, similar to the one Packie was wearing just a couple seconds ago. These chuckleheads remind him of a cartoon he saw as a kid where a guy floats along on a trail of perfume left behind by a sultry woman. They may as well have hearts for eyes. Pathetic.

“Now,” Michael says, setting up two glasses identical to his on the counter and filling them generously. The acrid stink of whiskey permeates the space, making it impossible to focus on anything else. “Let’s get down to business.”

\----

The Catherine that Packie McReary knows is not the one that’s sitting beside him, hugging a fancy-looking throw pillow to her chest with her chin sunk down in it. The Catherine he knows is more akin to the one he can hear his bosses discussing in the next room; a pushy, mouthy little dame who stops just short of overbearing, possibly strictly on the merit of her, uh,  _ assets _ . 

The woman who basically bullied his best friend Niko into letting her join their makeshift little gang, only to then flip the script and worm her way into their hearts with her soft-hearted charm. Sweetness wrapped in toughness. The type of woman who was pretty much made for surviving Liberty City. And Los Santos, apparently. 

“A’right,” Packie breaks the brooding silence. “What’s with the church mouse act?” 

“Excuse  _ you _ ,” Catherine shoots back, immediately defensive. “I have to deal with the fact that I was  _ stalked _ and  _ kidnapped _ just because Niko apparently got himself into trouble and now I gotta deal with your bullshit?”

“Don’t gimme any of your guff. You  _ like _ my bullshit, you were always just too scared to admit it,” Packie says, waggling his eyebrows suggestively, and Catherine rolls her eyes. Panicked alarms start going off in his head when he notices how wet those eyes are all of a sudden.

“I’m just...I’m scared,” Catherine admits, barely above a whisper. “I’m so fucking worried I can’t stand it. I mean, this is so far beyond the stupid little schemes and rackets you guys were running. And, just, if  _ you _ don’t even know where he is…” She swallows to keep her voice from wavering. “I just, I keep thinking about him on the run alone and scared and it kills me. I wish he would have contacted me just once, just  _ once _ to tell me he’s okay. He’s such a fucking  _ asshole. _ ”

Packie can’t help but smirk a little at how naive she is to the kinds of truly lurid shit he and Niko got up to once upon a time, and how he’s kind of glad that she doesn’t know. It’s actually kind of refreshing.

“Look, if  _ I _ ain’t worried about Niko, you got no reason to be. You ain’t seen ‘im relieve a man of his frontal lobe from half a mile away.”

She isn’t grossed out like Packie had hoped, just sighs and resigns herself back to that moping that he doesn’t know what to do with. But at least it’s not crying. He rubs his hand back and forth on the top of his closely-shorn head in a move that tells Catherine he’s struggling to be delicate. It’s an endearing mannerism that reminds her of Pete, the Pershing guard.

“Spit it out, McReary.”

Packie speaks quietly, as though afraid someone will hear him being even slightly sensitive. He averts his eyes from Catherine’s and says, “Well, it’s just, you know Niko. He tries to act above it all, but I could tell he was real torn up about sendin’ you away.”

“Well, bully for me then,” she replies after a moment’s pause, a little more acidly than intended. Packie knows when he’s hit a nerve. “And he didn’t ‘send me away’ like some kinda misbehaving kid. This is where I grew up, Packie. I came back home because I  _ wanted _ to. It just so happened to coincide with him deciding to piss off the mob.” 

Quiet falls over them again and Packie doesn’t try to mitigate it this time. He sits back against the plushy couch with his eyes closed and stretches his arms out along the back of it but quickly changes his mind because it’s dangerously comfortable. He thinks about how, once Catherine had boarded her plane with the one-way ticket to Los Santos, Niko wouldn’t come out with Packie or anyone else for anything. He’d stayed cooped up in his swanky Algonquin apartment for nearly a week, pacing, unshaven, being eaten away by the absence of the two women that served as his voices of reason and far too proud to admit it. 

Mourning for Kate, Packie could understand. Packie had spent more than a fair few nights drowning his sorrows in booze and coke (and some nights, when the flashbacks kept him awake and shuddering, a stab or two of horse) because he didn’t know of any other way to deal with watching his baby sister die. But he would never let himself get so messed up over some chick,  _ especially _ one he wasn’t dating. And Niko’s unwillingness to date this particular chick may as well have been one of those ancient unsolved mysteries, like Stonehenge, or how to bring a woman to orgasm, or... 

Catherine mumbles something unintelligible, pulling Packie out of his head. He nudges her shoulder with his fingers, gently.

“I can’t understand you, you literal pillow-biter.”

She laughs brightly and sits back, the gloom apparently lifted. “I said I got a dog.”

“Yeah, my boy Frank was tellin’ me about it on the way over. How he’s watchin’ your dog. And I was like, ‘ _ Dog? _ You sure? That’s a crazy old cat lady if I ever met one.’”

“At least I have it in my heart to care about things other than  _ myself _ every so often.”

Packie makes a  _ psh _ sound while Catherine stands and stretches, then fiddles with the remote for the oversized TV up on the wall. She gets it working after some effort (“hold on, hold on, Michael  _ just _ showed me how to do this, come  _ on _ ”) and settles on some kind of grandma show about how to keep your petunias alive or whatever before sinking back into the couch and wrapping herself in one of Michael’s plush-looking blankets. Packie realizes that he was wrong; this  _ is _ the Catherine he knows. 

Packie wouldn’t admit it in a million years, not under the threat of torture, but it’s kind of nice to see her again.

\--

Some time later, three men stand around Michael’s kitchen island nursing their near-empty bottle of whisky while they try to parcel out guard shifts like it’s babysitting duty. Trying, but getting nowhere. The paper Michael had produced from a cabinet for drawing up timetables still lay blank in front of him, and he’s snapping the lid of the marker on and off idly, staring off into space. 

Despite the initial burn, the scotch warms Trevor’s belly pleasantly, but he’s still keyed up somehow. Unluckily for the other two, the scotch also loosens Trevor’s tongue, and they find themselves stuck in another of his endless tirades. 

“I just don’t fuckin’ get it. Lester’s calling  _ us _ idiots when he just got the wool pulled over his eyes by a good set of legs,” Trevor mutters, leaning against the island counter and shaking his head. He lifts it to throw a sharp grin Michael’s way. “I didn’t think it was possible, but we may just be in the presence of a bigger snake than you, Townley. Nicer tits, too.”

Michael’s just buzzed enough not to rise to the bait.

For the first time since Trevor started his nonsensical diatribe about how the girl in the other room is probably some kind of double agent, Franklin looks up from his phone. “What’d she do, burn down your family’s crops in a past life or somethin’, dog? Chill the fuck out.”

Trevor sets his glass back down on the counter a bit harder than strictly necessary, flinging a few drops of the amber liquid. “Don’t fucking tell me to fucking chill out. Despite what everyone around here seems to think, I actually have a  _ lot _ of chill. I’m a fucking” - he pauses to burp - “Frigidaire, okay? All’s I’m saying is, she threw out that bullshit about a thesis to distract us from what Bellic  _ really _ wants from her, and you all fell for it.” 

Franklin looks to Michael for backup, but Michael can’t seem to do much more than eyeball Trevor’s spilled whiskey with disdain, so Franklin shrugs and goes back to scrolling Snapmatic. “Well either she shoulda gone to school for creative writing or you’re just a paranoid asshole, ‘cause that’s the most imaginative lie I ever heard.”

“You just don’t wanna admit you were wrong, Frankie boy. She knows what she’s doing because she’s one of us.” Trevor gestures with his now-empty glass, eyes narrowed. “A bad guy that arrests bad guys. I can’t fucking  _ stand _ it, the  _ nerve _ \- the  _ hypocrisy _ . I mean, what kind of person doesn’t freak out when they get forced into a basement by masked crooks? A fellow fucking crook, that’s who.”

“So you sayin’ you, a criminal, don’t trust her because she’s a criminal? Man, what kind of fuckin’ sense does  _ that _ make?”

“Wrong, Frank. Incorrect. I don’t trust her because she’s a  _ cop _ . Who’s  _ also _ a criminal.” Trevor tries to drain his glass only to find it already empty, and he slams it down again, jolting Michael out of his comfortable haze.

“Ho! Could we take it a little easier on the  _ Italian marble _ countertops, please?” Michael checks his watch and curses Lester for his insistence on using public transportation. “Ordinarily, T, I’d concede the point, but come on, man, drop it. I think it’s pretty safe to say she didn’t know what she was getting into with this Bellic guy and she certainly ain’t no criminal mastermind. She’s just a kid.”

Trevor looks like he’s weighing the pros and cons of throwing his glass at Michael’s head when Franklin interrupts that train of thought, desperate to end this circular conversation and not in the mood to clean up Michael’s blood. He sighs, “Look, man. Her and McReary is, like, best fuckin’ pals for some reason. Let’s get  _ him _ to settle this shit.”

“McReary!” Michael calls before Trevor can say whatever dumb alcohol-fueled response he’s got queued up. “Get in here.”

“Yessir,” comes the immediate reply, and Packie looks strangely youthful as he bounds up the short steps to the kitchen. Trevor sneers at him.

“We gather you’re familiar with our mark,” Michael says, watching Packie carefully as the Irishman situates himself on one of the barstools.

“Yeah, man, ‘member how I told you guys about how me an’ my crew hit the Bank of Liberty?  _ Man _ , what a score,” Packie recounts dreamily, apparently needing no further prompting. “Me n’ Niko’d been running together almost a year at that point. That day, he started talkin’ about this crazy broad he met, and then he just didn’t ever stop. It was fucking irritating, actually. Then he got me to tail her, make sure she wasn’t working for the Feds or anything. She sussed me out pretty quick though, and we ended up-”

Trevor exhales sharply, eyes and jaw clenched against the swimmy headache that always comes with whiskey. “McReary, I’m going to break this glass over your head and castrate you with the shards if you don’t get to the point in the next thirty seconds. Is she feeding us a bunch of bullshit with this dissertation nonsense or what?”

Packie shakes his head vigorously. “No, listen, it probably don’t mean shit comin’ from me, but I’ll vouch for her. She’s a good kid. There’s a couple reasons I call ‘er Saint Catherine.”

“If you try to tell me those reasons, _good_ _lord above_, I will not only neuter you, I will-” 

Packie fans out his hands defensively. “Look, okay, if this  _ is _ about that paper, Niko told me she never finished it, and she never said a thing to anyone. We woulda found out pretty fuckin’ quick if she had. She knows how to keep her head down.”

“We know,” Michael muses, once again entertaining himself with the marker cap and ignoring how Trevor grimaces with each loud pop. “Didn’t take us long to find her, but boy, she was slippery as a damn eel when we went to actually grab her.”

Packie raises one unkempt eyebrow at his employers. “Whaddya want with it, anyways? It’s long gone by now. She told me she torched it, literally.”

“That’s the only theory we had to go on initially, but I’m ninety-nine percent sure it’s all bunk,” comes Lester’s voice from the doorway. Everyone turns as he nods in greeting and begins setting up his laptop without delay. “Why these three are still so fixated on it, we’ll never know, but those of us with brains in our heads must soldier on and work on the  _ actual _ problem.”

“Which is?”

Lester pushes the power button and flexes his fingers. “Which  _ is _ , as Michael said, difficult as she was to catch, she wasn’t very difficult to  _ find _ . Even with all of her precautions. Technology is simply outpacing the old methods. Technology that is very readily available if you, or, let’s say, the mafia, know where to look.”

“But these guys are totally old-school,” Packie says, looking around at them with both brows raised now. “I don’t think Jimmy Pegorino even owned a computer.”

“It’s been a few years. If we want to keep this girl out of their hands and get paid, we have to assume they joined the twenty-first century between then and now.” Lester pauses, then looks at each of them. “It may surprise you to learn that time is of the essence, gentlemen. A guy named Alecks Dolecki was reported missing by his wife this morning, and the LSPD report says he’s actually been gone a couple of days.”

“So?”

“ _ ‘So’?”  _ Lester repeats with disgust. “Don’t any of you read the news? Now, granted, he was just a small fry, but nonetheless, the guy was on the state corrections board. By which Catherine is employed. Starting to make sense?”

Lester’s words dump a wet blanket of unease on the group. Franklin faces Packie and asks, voice heavy with frustration, “Well, if you’re so close with Bellic, can’t  _ you _ get us in touch with him? I mean, I aim to get paid for my work  _ one _ of these fuckin’ days. He needs to take care of this mafia issue, like, yesterday.”

Packie shakes his head. “I mean, I’ve probably talked to him a lot more recently than Saint- uh, than Catherine has, but after I moved to LS, he fell off the face of the earth. I mean, none of my guys in LC have heard so much as a peep for at least,  _ pshhh _ ...three years.”

Franklin pushes off the counter and runs his hands over his face. Michael gives him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

“You sure you’re up for this, McReary?” Lester asks with a tone that isn’t accusatory, simply curious. He’s peering at the other man, his glasses flashing in the light of his laptop screen. The others are watching him, too. “You certainly proved yourself against the, uh,  _ diabolical _ forces of the Paleto P.D., but we’re talking about the mob here. Quite a bit crueler and more unusual punishment than a prison stint if you get caught.”

“No question,” Packie supplies immediately with an enthusiastic nod. “Jimmy Pegorino personally killed my little sister Kate while they were trying to kill Niko. May’ve been an accident, but it doesn’t fucking matter. That was my baby sister, man.”

The others have gone awkwardly quiet, save for Lester’s typing.

“And besides, I was taught never to let anyone fuck with a fellow _Éireannach._ Hell, Catherine and me could be distant cousins or some shit, ” Packie adds, studying the marble countertop as though it’s suddenly very interesting. “She reminds me a lot of Kate.”

Approaching footsteps draw all attention to the arch that connects to the living room. They see Catherine looking at the mostly-empty bottle of scotch with wry amusement.

“Can I butt in on this very important top-secret boys’ club meeting for just a sec?”   


She makes her way over to the island without waiting for a response, leaving a faint trail of some kind of flowery scent behind her. Trevor thinks again of the cartoon man floating along on the pink cloud of perfume. He watches her take the seat furthest from where he’s leaning against the counter, and closest to Michael and Packie. She starts fiddling with the marker Michael just put down.

“I’m not sure if you guys remember, but I kind of only have one shoe, my stockings are toast, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t relish the thought of wearing the same pair of underwear for the rest of my possibly short life.” She looks up tentatively. “So I’d like to request a run to Binco.”

“Are you nuts?” Michael waggles a finger at her while Lester shakes his head. “We just _ abducted you off the street in broad daylight,  _ kid. Even if we  _ think _ no one saw, we gotta act like the entire city did. That means, until we’re sure the heat’s off, no shopping trips, no housecalls, no nothin’.”

Catherine scrunches up her face and huffs like a teenager who’s just been told she can’t go to a party. She leans forward on the counter, dropping her forehead to rest on her arm. “And how long are we estimating that’ll take? I mean, I’m starting a new job next month. I’m supposed to be signing a lease in two weeks, for pete’s sake. I got a lot of shit to move out to the desert.”

“Yeah, well, we ain’t exactly thrilled about it either, sweet pea,” Trevor says, tapping a finger on the countertop impatiently. He looks at Lester. “How long  _ are _ we stuck with LSPD’s finest? Because I’m going on holiday to Me-hi-co soon and it simply wouldn’t do to miss it.” He effects his spot-on posh English accent for his last few words, palm to his chest and chin tilted up for dramatic effect, and Trevor swears he sees a ghost of a red-lipped smile in his peripheral vision.   


“As long as it takes, T,” Michael chides. “Mexico will have to wait.”

Now Trevor’s the one that looks like a huffy teenager. It must just be his imagination, because he thinks he hears a stifled giggle and when he looks at the only person in this room he could imagine giggling, she’s looking at the floor, stony-faced. Still, he can’t stop the little rush of pleasure at making someone laugh, even if that someone  _ is _ a cop.

\----

Trevor is halfway through the two-four he’d wanted to be enjoying back in Sandy Shores by now, but his thoughts are still badgering him. He’s sat in front of the crappy TV in the Unicorn’s office, nursing his now properly-bandaged wound and not paying much attention to whatever terrible news was being shown onscreen. Somewhere around midnight, something is shown about that missing guy Lester was talking about earlier. Some lady crying about how she just wants him to come home.  _ Save your tears, lady _ , Trevor thinks,  _ He’s probably feeding worms in some pit somewhere. _

And Trevor keeps right on thinking, long after the news is replaced by reruns of some shitty nineties sitcom. He keeps returning to the kidnapping, the interrogation, the meeting, in an irritating cycle, but for some reason, his thoughts converge again and again on what happened  _ after _ the meeting.   


Once they’d agreed on a schedule for guard duty and Lester was packing up, the others were gathered around the kitchen island and shooting the shit friendly as you like while Trevor just kind of...watched. The feelings that churned in his gut were uncomfortably reminiscent of virtually every social situation he’d ever been a part of. He takes a long pull of lager and feels the ache pulsing through his arm.

He watched Catherine’s face fall into a childish pout when Michael told her that no, she couldn’t go get the stuff they’d forced her to leave at the hotel and no, no one was going to get it for her and no, her dog cannot come “just for a quick visit”. Trevor saw how warm and relaxed Michael’s amused smile was when she suddenly freaked out about not checking out of her hotel room properly, of all the things she could have freaked out about. He witnessed a Michael he’d not seen in ten years break through the fronts of nouveau-riche prissiness that New Michael had insisted on building around himself.

Trevor watched Catherine gently holding Franklin’s splinted wrist in her long fingers, watched how big and worried her eyes got when she apologized for his sprain. Watched how quick Frank was to reassure her, how eager he was when he asked for her advice on getting Chop trained up as well as Gus.   


Watched the quiet panic she surely thought no one saw as she privately grilled an unaffected Lester about Bellic’s whereabouts, his safety; watched her wringing hands when Lester couldn’t answer.

And Trevor also spent more than a little time watching how Catherine’s body tensed when he himself moved anywhere near her. How she eyed him warily and quickly looked away whenever his voice was heard. How he’d been able to leave without anyone noticing.

Bullshit.  _ Assholes _ .  _ Christ _ , he needs some crystal.

The last thing Trevor thinks about before drifting off into an alcohol-induced stupor that night is that great, soft fondness he’d seen in Catherine’s eyes. 

\----

Miles away from Trevor’s brooding session, Frederick Daniels hisses in pain as his knees hit the ground, gravel breaking his skin. 

The black bag is yanked off his head, along with more than a few of his hairs. His pupils shrink rapidly as they struggle to adjust to the flashlight being pointed directly into them. He wriggles against his bindings and starts to emit a whining string of pleas and profanities, but whoever is standing just outside of the blinding light, nothing more than a silhouette, doesn’t let him finish.

“You an’ I got a mutual friend, and I’m lookin’ to pay ‘er a visit.”

The assistant warden of Pershing Correctional doesn’t seem to hear, just keeps squirming and begging, so the man holding the flashlight signals for the first round of intimidation to begin. A jerry can hits the dirt next to the kneeling man, and the smell of sloshing gas hits him in a dizzying wave. A different voice rises from the darkness, startlingly close to Frederick’s ear. Same strong Liberty City accent, same smug intonation. 

“That’s a nice suit, Daniels. What is it, Perseus? Hate to have to watch it burn.”

The small flame of a lighter comes dangerously close to Daniels’ collar and hovers there, singeing just the edge. 

“Oh Jesus, oh god, oh,” comes his panting mantra, and the man behind the flashlight sighs and motions for his partner to dial it back a bit. Rafaele squats and moves the light between them so Frederick can see his face, chillingly apathetic.

“See, Freddie, those ain’t the names I’m lookin’ for,” Raf says evenly, staring the other man down. “Missus Pegorino just wants me to have a friendly little chat with one of your employees. So, unless you wanna find out what you smell like while you’re cookin’, you’re gonna tell me where Catherine Rowan is.”

“Who? Who, who the fuck are you talking about?” Frederick sputters, breath coming in short gasps now. Rafaele knows the man is going to pass out or something if he isn’t careful. He taps his index finger against Daniels’ sweaty forehead.

“Think, Fred. She supervises the corrections officers.  _ Think, _ man.”

“I don’t, goddammit, I don’t, I, I need my inhaler. Right...right pants pocket. Please.  _ Please _ .”

Rafaele groans as the assistant warden returns to chanting “oh Jesus, oh god”. The image of Sal’s eyes staring up at the ceiling while half his head slid out onto the floor comes to Rafaele then, and he knows he can’t let this stupid fucker die of an asthma attack on his watch. Raf snaps his fingers at Luca and points, commanding him to retrieve the medication, and holds the inhaler while the man gulps it down gratefully.

“Catherine. Rowan,” Raf reminds him, tapping his watch meaningfully. Daniels whips his head around frantically as if looking for someone to help him, but of course, there’s no one.

“I don’t, I’m sorry, I don’t know, I’ve heard the name, but, but I never met her, please,  _ please,  _ you have to believe me.”

Rafaele hates it when they get like this. They’re next to useless when they’re all panicky. He can see hatred, disgust, glowing behind Luca’s eyes and knows they’re treading on dangerous ground. Luca is younger than him, stronger. If he decides he’s had enough of this, consequences be damned, there’s not much Rafaele can do to stop him. 

“Chill the fuck out, Daniels. I believe you. But, y’see, that don’t matter, because you not knowin’ her, well, that don’t help me none.”

“Dalton!” the assistant warden cries out at last, and the words start tumbling out. “Warden Dalton, he, he knows her. She reports directly to him. He  _ hates _ her. He’ll help you.”

Rafaele laughs and ruffles Frederick’s carefully-styled blonde hair a little rougher than he needs to. “See, kid? You’re learning. Go on, tell us a little more.”

Frederick swallows, shifts his weight on the gravel digging into his knees, and chokes out, “Well, um, that girl, she, she doesn’t work. At Pershing. Anymore. Dalton’ll know. He’ll know where she went.”

Rafaele sees Luca’s mouth pull taut into a sneer. He makes one last push while the argument could still be made that this guy is useful.

“Gonna need a little more than that, Daniels. A prison warden isn’t gonna just come out for a sit-down. How do we get him to come to us?”

“Oh god, fuck, he...he loves poker. Yeah, and, and, he’s always bragging about how much he wins at the high-stakes games in Venturas.” Frederick raises his face to Raf’s, damp hair hanging in strings that mostly obscure his hardening gaze. “I know you mob guys. Set the buy-in at fifty thousand and put the word out. Trust me, you won’t have to go looking. He’ll find you.”

Rafaele, satisfied, nods at Luca, but Luca is still staring daggers at their captive. Without warning, Luca yanks his pistol from his trousers and pushes the barrel against Daniels' sweat-slicked forehead, eliciting a screech from the kneeling man. For one horrifying moment, Rafaele thinks he's going to pull the trigger, but Daniels topples backwards and curls into a ball on his side, trembling violently. Luca breaks out into barking laughter when he sees the puddle of piss forming underneath the sobbing assistant warden, and the snickering of the surrounding group of Pegorino’s soldiers rises up to join it.   


Luca lifts a steel-toed boot and Rafaele doesn’t even have time to shout before he aims a swift, deadly kick directly at the side of Frederick’s head. At the last possible second, Luca’s boot diverts its course and strikes the ground instead, sending a shower of dirt and rocks crashing down onto the screaming man’s face. The chuckling from the other men escalates to shrieks of laughter as they watch Frederick choke on the debris, convulsing furiously as he tries in vain to free his hands.

Rafaele rushes forward to loosen the binds as Luca turns away and signals for the others to follow, a cruel smirk twisting his lips. The underboss watches what is supposed to be his right-hand man lead the rest of Pegorino’s lackeys back to the cars waiting for them at the bottom of the hill. Several of the goons mimic Daniels’ pleas for mercy, eliciting round after round of laughter until the group is out of sight, not bothering to wait for the man who is supposed to be their leader.

Rafaele slings one of the assistant warden’s arms around strong shoulders before hoisting him up and supporting him down to the road, where he will be left to hitch a ride back to the city. Raf is thinking about how he can’t wait to be free of the stench of sweat and piss when Frederick speaks up.

“It...it was you guys, wasn’t it,” he says, more a declaration than a question. “You guys got Alecks. He gave me up.”

“That’s right, Daniels, and you better keep your mouth shut if you don’t want to share his grave.”

Frederick clams up at that. A warm breeze rises as Rafaele looks up at the full moon with a grimace and thinks,  _ that Rowan broad better pray I get to her before Luc does. _


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let the painful, awkward flirting begin. :)

_ In 1992, to escape the rising tide of Los Santos’ brutal gang wars, two-thirds of the Rowan family traded their small house in Davis for an even smaller trailer in Angel Pine, halfway across the state. _

_ Officer Charlie Rowan sat across the table from his little girl, sharing french fries with her during one of his weekly visits. Jane Child wailed about not wanting to fall in love over the Cluckin’ Bell’s crappy speakers. Catherine’s little purple backpack sat on the vinyl booth beside her, her cutesy cartoon cat keychain grinning at him. It was a rare occasion where things felt good, especially since he’d moved his wife and kid out to the ass-end of nowhere. He was blissfully unaware that the good times were going to become even fewer and farther between. _

_ “Dad, have you ever seen a tor-nay-to?” _

_ Her little voice broke through his thoughts. He smiled at her when he saw her big green eyes sparkling with curiosity. _

_ “A what, Cathy?” _

_ Catherine scrunched up her face the way she always did when he used that nickname. _

_ “Don’t gimme that face,” he said playfully, gesturing with a french fry. “Don’t forget that your gramma wanted us to name you Saoirse.” _

_ She crinkled her nose even further, but was undeterred. “We learnt about ‘em in science. It’s like a, a...funnel cake cloud?” _

_ Charlie smiled, tempted to let her go on all day explaining, making swirling gestures with her tiny hands. “ _ Funnel _ cloud,” he corrects. “You’re thinkin’ of them things we had with your Ma at the pier. You been wantin’ to go back there, huh?” _

_ The child nodded enthusiastically. “When can me ‘n Ma come home?” _

_ He’d seen that coming, but he still felt the swell of anger under his ribs. It was usually easier to control when it was just him and his daughter, but not always. Catherine’s mother clearly needed another talking-to. He lowered his voice into a threatening monotone. “Catherine Erin, I told you to stop askin’ me about that. It ain’t safe in the city.” _

_ She clammed up and kept her eyes down in just the same way as her mother did when he spoke to her that way, and Charlie sighed. “Now tell me more about them ‘tor-nay-toes’.” _

_ It was clear on the ride back to the trailer in Charlie’s squad car that Catherine wasn’t ready to let go of the tornado thing, even after she’d exhausted the list of facts she’d learned at school. She was a headstrong little devil, but he couldn’t fault her for it. She’d been watching _ him _ for her whole life, after all. He’d be lucky if that was all she’d picked up from him. _

_ “...And, and my teacher says one could tear up Flint County in just a minute, is that really true?” _

_ Charlie pulled the car onto the shoulder of the crumbling asphalt road, on the crest of a hill overlooking the trailer park where Catherine and her mother had lived for the last five months, and would continue to live long after Los Santos became safe again. He pointed to each of San Andreas’ highest peaks, rising proudly in the far distance, making sure that his daughter’s gaze followed his finger. _

_ “There, there, and there. You see ‘em? Mount Chiliad, Mount Josiah, and Mount Gordo. Now see how Angel Pine’s kinda in the middle of all of ‘em? The mountains keep those tornadoes from gettin’ anywhere close to us. Kinda like the walls of a house keep out a storm.” _

_ When he saw she was not being persuaded, a skeptical little furrow on her brow, Charlie launched into the dramatic recitation that he always employed to make his daughter smile. It worked this time, just like always. _

_ “O Catherine! My Catherine! How’d you get such a big name when you’re so small? Rise up and hear the bells...” _

_ It wasn’t until much later that Catherine realized her father was wrong about many things, including this. A tornado can touch down wherever it pleases, destroying whatever is unlucky enough to be in its path. And when it does, it doesn’t matter how many mountains rise up to stop it. _

  
  


—

  
  


It’s the first time he’s been alone with her, and they’re both keenly aware.

Trevor happened to cross her path while she was reclining by the pool, reading some fancy-looking book from Michael’s living room. She’d tucked herself carefully away under the shade one of those big beach umbrellas, with the added protection of that big sunhat and glasses he remembers her wearing the first time he saw her, in that picture Lester showed them. He guessed that skin like hers probably doesn’t tan - she probably looks like McReary after six hours of guard duty, the color of an embarrassed lobster. Trevor thought again that she wouldn’t look out of place in one of those stodgy old black-and-white Vinewood movies that Michael’s obsessed with.

And now he’s just. Standing here. Because he’d anticipated that Catherine would gather her stuff and hurry into the house when he showed up, like she usually does. When she didn’t, though...it was like that one nightmare where he has to perform in a stage play and can’t remember any of his lines.

“So,” Trevor starts, and immediately hates how awkward he sounds. How wrong his own voice sounds to his ears. It doesn’t help that Catherine’s just sitting there blinking up at him and subtly fighting to keep her body language casual. Nor does it help that he’s basically standing over her, towering menacingly when he doesn’t even mean to. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He forces himself to keep going, now oddly determined. “White Zombie, huh?”

Catherine follows Trevor’s nod to her calf, where the tattoo in question has rested since the day she turned eighteen. For a brief, miraculous moment, he sees all the tension in her posture melt away. She twists her hips so she can see the metal band’s logo, a grimacing zombified face, permanently embedded in her skin.

“Oh, uh, yeah. My first tattoo, actually. Day I turned eighteen.” She looks pleasantly distant. They’re the first words she’s said to Trevor directly that don’t involve Niko Bellic or her damn dissertation. “It looks shitty, you know, but...I dunno. There’s just something special about your first.”

Trevor snorts. “_I’ll _ say.” 

And she must not be thinking clearly, Trevor decides, because when she rolls her eyes, she also lightly shoves his leg. He just stares down at the spot her fingertips touched and damn if he doesn’t feel like some kind of celibate fucking monk, because that tiny bit of contact got his heart rate right the hell up. 

“Don’t exactly go along with your whole, uh-” he gestures vaguely at her, “-image.”

“I like to think I represent all the different types of ‘alt girls’ all in one. You know, the types of girls Michael would call ‘special snowflakes’ and accuse of having daddy issues.”

_ It looks good on you _ , Trevor almost says, but instead goes with, “Well, _ do _ you?”

“Do I what?”

“Have daddy issues.” 

_ Oh that’s good, Trevor, you dipshit, ruin whatever tiny iota of normalcy you finally fucking had. _

“Kinda goes with the territory.” Catherine doesn’t miss a beat, and Trevor finds his attention hooking on the low, velvety quality of her voice when she says it. Like if someone’s voice could wink.

“So, what was _ your _ first?” she asks, then gives a coy smile that sets Trevor’s skin to thrumming. “Tattoo, that is.”

He splays his fingers out, proudly displaying the words ‘fuck you’ stamped across his knuckles, and is suddenly very aware of how dirty his fingernails are. Catherine doesn’t seem to notice, and that bubbling laughter doesn’t sound forced, or derisive, or anything other than honestly, genuinely delighted. 

“Hey, doesn’t Michael have that same one?” Suddenly she’s pointing to the dagger on the inside of Trevor’s forearm. Her eyes narrow and her smile goes impish.

“Don’t you say it,” he warns, but his own smile betrays him. "Whatever bullshit you're thinking-"

“Matching tattoos? Ohhh my god, this explains _ everything! _” Catherine crows. She stands and cups her hands over her mouth. “Hey, Weazel, I got your next big hit over here! We got some unresolved sexual tension between infamous criminals! Somebody bring a camera!”

Because he has all the conversational skills of a middle-school boy when it comes to women and even less impulse control, it strikes Trevor as a good idea to shove her toward the pool. The look on her face when she almost tumbles in fuels his snickering as he speeds away, lungs burning and feeling like they're three sizes too big for his chest.

  
  


\--

  
  


“Delta Sierra, this is Romeo, over.”

...

“Come in, Delta Sierra. What’s your 20, over?”

…

“Delta Si-”

“Kid, we already got a system. Just use the initials,” Michael says over the earpiece, sounding a little out of breath.

“Were you taking a leak, Delta Sierra? It’s _ Romeo_, remember? And I _ am _ using the initials, I’m just doing it my way. _ And _ you forgot to say ‘over’. Over.”

Michael sighs, but he can’t stop a smile from creeping across his face. He’s standing along the hedge at the north side of the house, surveying the completely empty backyard for approximately the 500th time. He shifts his weight to the other foot and stretches out his neck, feeling more than a few beads of sweat roll down his back to soak into his shirt. The pool looks awfully inviting. He swallows painfully against a bone-dry throat. “Sorry, _ Romeo. _And no, it’s just hot as fuck out here. I’m trying to conserve energy. Over.”

“Y’all know I can hear everything you’re saying, right?” comes Franklin’s voice, not bothering to hide his irritation.

“Come on, Charlie. You have to say ‘over’ so we know you’re done talking. Over.”

“Yeah, _ Charlie_,” Michael sing-songs, goading him. “Would it kill ya to get in the spirit of things? Over.”

Franklin mutters under his breath, wipes his forehead and then the binoculars with his shirt, then goes back to watching the road from his spot on the roof. He’s totally exposed to the brutal heat of the sun up here, but he guesses it comes with being the junior member of the team. “Mike, we gettin’ paid extra for this babysittin’ shit? Where’s the ‘mute’ button on this fuckin’ thing?”

Catherine ignores him. “Gentlemen, I’m calling to report a terminal case of boredom from inside the Delta Sierra residence. Can’t one of you sing me a song or something? Or is that against the cool-guy code? Over.”

“Definitely against the code, over.” Michael pokes his head around the corner of the house and flashes the signal at Franklin, who starts to make his way down for the shift change. Right on cue, Trevor’s signature red Bodhi rumbles up to the gate with Packie’s car close behind. Chop gets up from his spot in the shade and bounds over to the four of them as they meet in the driveway, flecking slobber everywhere.

“I’ve worked my way through most of Delta Sierra’s Blu-Ray collection and have started on the self-help books. There’s a lot of them, over.”

Trevor shoots Michael a peculiar look when he hears Catherine’s voice talking nonsense over the headset, so layered that Michael can’t even begin to analyze it. Not that he wants to. It’s too damn hot to deal with him right now.

“Good, maybe they’ll help you become so enlightened that you quit bothering us down here in reality,” Franklin quips. He takes the earpiece out and rubs the soreness out of this ear canal. Michael goes to do the same until he hears a door creak open, followed by some rustling.

“Delta Sierra, I have located tennis rackets collecting dust in the garage. Requesting permission to-”

Michael turns away from Trevor, who is peering at him in a calculating way that creeps him out.

“Don’t even think about it, kid. And quit pokin’ your big head in where it don’t belong. Shift change time. Over and out.”

“It’s _ Romeo_-”

Franklin gives them all a look that says “good luck” and leaves with Chop in a hurry. Trevor and Packie start their rounds without further ado, well practiced after a couple days of the same monotonous routine.

Sometime in the late afternoon, Catherine wears Michael down on the tennis thing. After she spends the whole walk to the court bragging all about being Varsity in high school, Michael takes great joy in absolutely wiping the floor with her. He’s rusty, sure, but he isn’t sure she’s ever even been on the court before. She does look good in Amanda’s tennis skirt, though, he has to admit.

Because betting is among Michael’s many vices, there was a wager on that game. If Michael lost, he had to go out and find her a new dress and shoes (though she insisted on paying him back); if Catherine lost, Michael got her to agree to give him the whole story with Niko. More than just sating his curiosity, hell, maybe it’d give him some ideas about how to find that shady Slav piece of shit and shake the money out of him.

Michael knows it was risky to let her out of the house, even just out to the tennis court, but he has to admit his guard is getting lower by the day. If there were anything to worry about, Lester would be doing more than just shrugging his shoulders whenever they saw him. If Lester believes the Pegorinos are a joke, then they must be.

Come sundown, they’re sharing a comfortable silence in the lounge chairs by the pool, him laid out with his usual accessories and her reading a leatherbound Whitman compilation from the living room that Michael is sure Amanda bought solely for the pretty cover. Catherine finally gave in and borrowed some old pajamas that Tracey left behind when she went away to school, so instead of that clingy green dress, she’s in heart-printed fleece. Michael thanks his lucky stars that neither Trace nor Amanda are here to witness any of this.

Jane Child wails about not wanting to fall in love on the bluetooth speaker between them and the breeze feels incredible, picking up the pleasant scent of honeysuckle and freesia from somewhere. Much better than the usual city stench of burnt rubber and sewage. Every once in a while, they catch a glimpse of Trevor or Packie looking completely miserable as they make their rounds and Michael doesn’t feel a bit sorry when he sees them absolutely drenched in sweat. He does notice, however, that Trevor’s gaze lingers on him and Catherine longer than strictly necessary whenever he goes by, and he doesn’t want to imagine the conclusions that rusty steel trap of a mind is jumping to.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten our deal,” Michael says after a drag on his cigar. When Catherine looks at him, he has his eyes closed behind his sunglasses and a smirk on his lips. She closes the ornamental book and sits it carefully on the towel at the foot of the chair before swinging her long legs over the side to face him.

“Another interrogation?” Her tone is sarcastic. “Michael, well, I just don’t know if I can handle any more. Not after all of the manhandling I’ve experienced at the hands of you...you _ roughnecks _.”

Michael lifts his aviators to see her with her forearm draped dramatically across her forehead in a way that reminds him oddly of Trevor. “_Manhandling_?” he scoffs. “You ain’t _ seen _ manhandling, kid. We didn’t even pull out our guns.”

“_He _ did,” Catherine says, voice going unexpectedly quiet. Her body language closes up and she turns her eyes to the concrete. Michael feels a little twinge of guilt and wonders when he’s going to stop feeling that way around her. 

“Trev is...well, I was about to say he’s harmless, but you can’t even begin to know how untrue that is,” Michael says with a little laugh. “But look, kid, if it makes you feel any better, he ain’t gonna hurt ya. He’s being paid to do the opposite, and if there’s one good thing to be said about Trevor Philips - and there may only _ be _ one good thing - it’s that he does what he’s paid to do.”

Catherine snorts. “Some may argue that that’s not a good thing at all, depending on the context.” 

“It’s a good thing if it means keeping your ass away from the mafia, ain’t it?” Michael puts his sunglasses back down but keeps his eyes on her. “And besides, I’m pretty sure he’d never hurt a woman, regardless of how much of an obnoxious wiseguy she may be. I don’t pretend to understand his fucked-up logic, but that seems to be his one rule.”

Catherine doesn’t look quite convinced. She crosses her arms in a way that looks more somber than defensive. “He just...I don’t know. He’s so _ aggressive_. It always feels like he could snap any second. Like one day we're just shooting the shit about tattoos, and the next it's like me just _ being _ here pisses him off.”

Michael grunts noncommittally, scratching his stubbled chin. He knows she’s thinking about yesterday, when Trevor snapped at her after she jokingly threatened to sic Bellic on them if they didn’t let her at least go buy a second pair of underwear. Trevor accused her of holding out on them, helping Bellic stay hidden so he wouldn’t have to pay up. Catherine had stood her ground, but once it was clear that Trevor had his heart set on being a dick, she’d disappeared to the guest room for the rest of the night. 

Catherine motions for Michael’s cigar and he hands it to her without thinking, watching as she inhales in a way that tells him she had a habit at some point in her life. Michael can’t believe it, but he’s about to defend that junkie psychopath.

“He’s...well, we’re all a little on edge. Your friend hasn’t exactly been forthcoming with the parameters. For any of this. The not knowing how long this is gonna take is driving us all a little crazy.” 

When Catherine doesn’t respond, mulling over what Michael just said, he adds, “Plus, you _ did _ sic your dog on him. I’m just surprised he didn’t shoot it.”

Shame darkens her features immediately and Michael rushes to reassure her he was joking, but she cuts him off. “I wish there was something I could do to make this easier on you guys. I hate feeling so useless,” she huffs, and Michael realizes that he never considered she might be as frustrated as the rest of them. “Michael, I _ swear_, if I _ could _ talk to Niko-”

“Don’t worry about it, Cath,” he interrupts, holding up his hand, and she starts a little. It’s the first time Michael’s called her anything other than ‘kid’ and, even weirder, it’s the same thing Niko used to call her. Not ‘Cathy’, or ‘Cat’, like people usually settle on. Catherine is surprised by how much it hurts her to think of Niko when she isn’t prepared for it. 

“I shouldn’t’ve said anything. Just, you know, it looks like we’re going to be here a while. So buckle in and don’t let Trevor get to ya too much, huh? Nothing’s gonna happen to you while we’re here. That’s a promise.”

Catherine nods after a moment, even laughs when Michael brushes his knuckles against her chin in a playful mock-punch. “God, you’re such a _ dad. _”

“I really am.”

“Next you’re gonna be calling me ‘champ’.”

Michael chuckles, kicking off his loafers and settling back into his very comfy-looking position. He throws his arms up and laces his fingers behind his head.

“Now,” he says with one eye half-open, trained on her expectantly. “The whole story. From the top, sister. And don’t skimp on the details.”

Catherine lays Michael’s cigar in the ashtray beside the speaker, apparently satisfied. She sits forward and Michael sees something flicker to life in her eyes, something that reminds him of the way Jimmy and Tracey used to look when they saw their mountains of presents under the Christmas tree.

“Well, it all started when Niko killed my boss…”

And through it all, over by the fountain, he can’t clearly hear them, but Trevor is watching.

  
  


—

  
  


Hours after Michael has retreated into the house and the sun has gone down, Catherine is still sitting in that same spot by the pool. Hidden in the little green oasis of Michael’s backyard, the city coming to life all around, it’s easy to forget all the crazy shit Niko’s gotten her into. She’s nearing the end of the Whitman book, considering joining Michael on the couch, when she senses movement at the corner of her vision. 

Trevor, hoping to continue their little repartee from the other day, isn’t expecting her to shriek and jump out of the chair, but that’s exactly what she does. The book goes clattering to the concrete. He dives for it before it can fall into the pool and then the universe decides to remind him that his lot in life is to suffer eternally. Because, at that same moment, Catherine’s diving for it too. Right into Trevor’s path. And, well, physics is a cruel mistress with a taste for irony.

There she goes. Ass first. Into the pool. Yelp. Big splash. Should he shoot himself right here or is jumping into traffic more noble?

She surfaces, gasping and coughing, and sees Trevor’s eyes round as saucers, hands on either side of his face in the visual definition of pants-shitting horror. That only lasts for a split second before he’s stumbling over himself to help her out, growling an obscene litany. For the moment she’s looking up at him, this man that has done almost nothing but mock and taunt and sneer, this man that can't decide whether he wants to be ally or an antagonist, she’s shocked to see more fear in those wide brown eyes than she ever would have thought him capable of. 

Catherine takes Trevor’s proffered hand, then grips his forearm with the other.

“Ooooops!” she croons, “Sorry!” 

She yanks, and the last thing Trevor sees before he gets a face full of water is the huge grin of someone who is the opposite of sorry. 

She immediately, viscerally regrets it, but her fears vanish the instant Trevor bursts back up through the water, throwing his head back like some kind of shampoo commercial and straight up _ howling_. He shoves a tidal wave’s worth of water at her, cackling maniacally, and Catherine hears her own breathless laughter as she throws up her arms in defense, surprising herself with the sound of it.

Trevor stops splashing around abruptly, looking past her. “Well, fuck, here comes the fucking cavalry.”

Packie comes sprinting around the side of the house, shotgun raised and shouting unintelligibly, right as Michael comes barrelling out the back door with his pistol. They both lower their weapons, but Michael’s bewildered expression doesn’t leave and in fact intensifies when he sees that there’s no mafia goons, just Trevor. And Catherine. In the pool.

“What the fuck happened?” Michael demands.

“Nothing, Christ!” Trevor shouts, throwing his arms up. Catherine gets a hearty splash right to the face when those long arms come crashing back down. “Can’t a guy go for a swim without everyone losing their goddamn minds?”

Catherine rubs the sting of chlorine from her eyes, coughing and still laughing, and gives Michael and Packie a thumbs-up before wading over to the side and lifting herself out. Trevor moves to help but thinks better of touching her, especially with Michael right there boring holes into him. He stays floating in the pool, hair sticking out in all directions, while Catherine gathers her thoroughly ruined book and a towel and heads for the house.

“Didn’t mean to scare you, sweet pea,” Trevor calls after her. She smirks over her shoulder at him and brushes past a gaping Michael into the warm light of the kitchen. Michael’s gaze falls back on the other man and hardens with intense suspicion.

“Get back to your rounds, T,” he says lowly, an edge to his voice that intimidates others but just delights Trevor.

“_Sir, yes, sir!” _ he barks, saluting stiffly as Michael stretches his neck and disappears back inside. Trevor swims a couple of laps to work off the unruly energy that’s coiled up in his limbs and beating against his ribcage before clambering out of the pool and rolling onto his back.

He doesn’t get up right away, just looks up at where the stars should be while he catches his heaving breath, thinking about mischievous green eyes and flower tattoos. Then Packie is standing over him, still toting his shotgun, curiosity knitting his prominent brow.

“What the hell _ was _ that?” 

“Mind your own fucking business, McReary.”

  
  


—

  
  


In Room 412 of the Gentry Manor Hotel, a deluxe suite with all manner of exotic potted plants and gold-threaded couches, the fate of an increasingly nervous man is getting spelled out on a mahogany table. Every single one of the other men at the table are plants, mafia goons pretending to be equally invested in the rigged game. Thomas Dalton doesn’t know he’s the only one with something to lose tonight.

He lowers his gaze to his hand again, as though the miserable lot of cards he’s clutching will have changed since he last glared at them thirty seconds ago. He should have folded every hand he’s been dealt tonight. Something’s not right. In any other game, he would have walked out with the pot hours ago. But his usual method of bullying the other poor saps out of the game with his aggressive betting hasn’t gotten him anywhere but seventy-five thousand dollars in the hole.

Seven hours in, Dalton can’t take it anymore. He slams his palms down on the velvet playfield, making his meager pile of three chips jump and scattering the enormous pile of the player across from him. The guy stands slowly, and Dalton realizes the magnitude of his mistake as the guy leans in, neck and biceps thick as tree trunks. The room is silent as everyone else watches with rapt attention.

His voice is low and menacing when he asks, oddly calm, “What the fuck’s your problem, warden?”

“This game is fucking rigged,” Dalton spits. He doesn’t know how to stop himself despite the clear anger flashing in the eyes of the house enforcers standing around the table. “You’re going to give me back my fifty thousand and I’m going to-”

A glint catches Dalton’s eye and then he’s face to face with a small SMG. The burly guy across from him was apparently storing it in his jacket. Instinctively, his hands go up.

“You’re going to what, Dalton? Because it seems to me, you’re the one that needs to pay up.”

“_Wait_, just wait a fucking second-”

The man pushes the barrel closer to Dalton’s face and he can feel all the color drain away.

“Luca,” warns one of the enforcers. The man with the gun huffs and pulls back. The enforcer continues, “He ain’t wrong, warden. You’re in an awful lot of debt for a guy with so many complaints.” He nods, and in seconds, all of the other players have surrounded the old man. Now he’s got more than just an SMG to worry about. It dawns on Dalton that he should have listened to his gut instinct. 

“Hold on, hold _ on_, I gave you a fake name. And I certainly didn’t say anything about being a warden. What the hell is going on here?”

“What’s going on here is that you’re in hock to the mafia for seventy-five G’s,” the man called Luca sneers. His grin grows wider when Dalton’s lips start trembling, spilling the failed beginnings of several sentences that go nowhere.

“Not to worry, though, _ vecchio_,” the enforcer chirps, slapping an arm around the old man’s shoulders, “There’s one little thing we need, that you just happen to have, and then all of this-” he waves his hand like a magician “-can go right away.”

“Little...little thing?” 

“We came all the way from Liberty City to meet this broad, see, only we’re havin’ a little trouble findin’ ‘er. And one of your kind employees noted that you might be familiar, big man. About five-foot-four, late twenties, dark hair, lotta tattoos.”

Dalton’s mind trips over itself in search of what woman he could possibly know that would be wanted by the mafia. The only woman he knows that came from Liberty is- oh, this is rich. Too perfect.

Luca and Rafaele share a glance when the old man smiles and says, without a hint of fear, “Catherine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit is finally looking like it could get real <_< Next chapter coming sooner than this one did!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some graphic sexual language ahead because Trevor is a frustrated boy.

The air is heavy enough to squeeze the breath from her lungs, hot and dry and rumbling with destructive promise. Forks of fierce white lightning brighten everything to daylight, so brilliant that she has to hide her eyes. Gus is going absolutely crazy in the house behind her, baying in a way that makes her chest heavy with primal dread. She wants to call out to him, go to him, but she has no say in what her body does right now. When had those sirens started? She has to hold her head together to keep it from splitting open.

Then she sees it. Far above her head, the wind whips and twists the blackened clouds into a shape that sets her skin on fire. Descending from the angry, swirling vortex of sky, with steely strength and deadly speed, comes the tornado. 

It devours houses in seconds, entire buildings and their contents torn from the ground and pulled apart, inhaled by the furious siphon. There was nothing they could have done, no preparations they could have made. This was inevitable.

Catherine claws at her face in horror when the inky-dark funnel is suddenly bearing down on her front door. In the seconds before she is consumed, Niko’s voice comes to her from her right, calm and even and perfectly audible. 

“_Ne bojte se, lekar. _”

He takes her hand, something he never did before.

“_Posmatram te. _”

Niko’s face is faded with time, unfamiliar. She can’t stop looking at their hands. Her voice comes out slow and thick, and she feels heavy tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. 

“But you _ aren’t_. You aren’t, and if you were, I might know what to-”

In the strangeness of dream logic, she can’t remember how she got here, but she’s watching a favorite old memory unfold like a stage play. Catherine sees herself sitting with Niko in his luxe Algonquin penthouse. She’s on her stomach on the floor, resting her elbows on a cushy throw pillow, surrounded by school books. She looks younger, happier. 

Niko lounges on the sofa close by, orating. His face is still obscured and unclear, like looking through a dirty lens. Instead of the bright spring day she remembers, the windows display those same pulsating, whirring clouds from a few moments before. The funnel is forming.

“_Ja otac- _” 

“Moj_ otac, _ ” he corrects. She scrunches her face, huffing. Niko just smiles and shrugs, opening one eye to peek at her. “Hey, you want to learn my language, you got to do it right, _ lekar _.”

“Ok, ok, I got this,” she hears herself say with determination. Big exhale. Eyes screwed shut. Niko’s smile grows. “_Moj otac...je, _ uh, _ poli...polici- _”

“_Poli_ca.” 

“Shoot, ok. _ Moj otac je_, uh, _ poli...policajac_?”

Niko gives that chuckle of his, deep in his throat. “Well done, Cath.”

When she opens her eyes and sees Niko’s phone aimed at her, she squeals and dives for it. “Oh my god, don’t you _ dare!_”

They wrestle over it, and Catherine vividly recalls the hum of excitement under her skin that always came with having an excuse to touch him. She tries to cry out, warn them of the approaching storm, but her throat has closed up like a vice. The walls and faces are torn away and they’re swallowed up by the shrieking black.

Catherine wakes with something between a gasp and a sob, hair plastered to her forehead. She shoots up and grabs around instinctively for Gus in a blind panic for a few seconds before remembering that his comforting warmth is miles away from here. The blurry shapes of Michael’s guest room gradually come into focus, thrown into deep contrast by the bright white light of the moon. Not a cloud in sight. The door bursts open just as she’s beginning to calm down.

In stumbles Michael, in just in his boxers with his short hair awry, pistol drawn and red-ringed eyes darting around the room. He stops when he sees that Catherine’s alone, sitting on the edge of the bed and clutching her chest.

“_Christ_, Michael!”

“Jesus, kid, I’m sorry, but you scared the fuck out of me.” He lowers his gun and his voice. “What happened? You ok?”

“Bad dream,” Catherine says quietly. She wants to crawl back into bed, but her body prefers to stay still for the moment. Michael leans against the doorframe, studying her.

“Wanna talk about it?” he ventures. “I have a lot of experience.”

She just sits there a minute, rubbing her arms and staring at the floor, before lifting her head to him. 

“Back when you lived in Illinois, did you ever see a tornado?”

Michael balks. “Three in the morning and you’re asking me _ what _ now?”

Catherine lets the question stand. She tucks her knees up to her chest and looks so morose that something within Michael propels him forward. He sits on the bed next to her and puts the gun down on his other side so she’ll stop eyeing it warily. There’s always this inexplicable need to avert his eyes when girls cry, or might cry, or show just about any emotion, so he studies the blanket of dust on the bedside table instead.

“Uhh, yeah, we...it was kind of a regular thing out there, in the midwest,” Michael recounts. “If he wasn’t in the mood to kick my teeth in, my old man and me’d sit out on the front porch and have a couple beers. That’s what everybody did out there. Just hung around watchin’ it tear shit up from a safe distance. I think we only evacuated, what, once?” 

Michael smirks a little at the memory of his neighbors whooping and clinking bottles whenever an overgrown lean-to or abandoned trailer got wiped out. He notices Catherine has tilted her head towards him, resting on her knees, in a kind of awe.

“I’ve always been _ terrified _ of them,” she tells him. “I blame my second grade teacher. It took months before I stopped freaking out about every little gust of wind."

Michael shrugs one shoulder. “It’s all a matter of what you’re used to. City girl like you, I wouldn’t be surprised if you melted away in nothing but a light drizzle.”

That did it. The spark is back in her eye.

“Um, excuse _ you_, I’ll have you know…”

Trevor had been making his way upstairs to wake Michael’s fat ass up and give him an earful for being late for his guard shift, but he froze on the landing when he saw the other man disappear into Catherine’s room in his skivvies. He wrestles with himself as he watches the door creak mostly closed, wanting to see yet wanting very much _ not _ to see what’s going on behind it. 

If it were anyone else staying in that room, he knows he would barge in, rejoice in causing chaos, revel in Michael’s humiliation. He doesn’t know what’s holding him back. He doesn’t know how to handle not quite feeling like himself. All Trevor can think about as he takes his time heading back downstairs is the nauseating ache of homesickness. 

\--

The next chance Trevor has to be alone with her, he jumps at it. 

He finds Catherine as he’s making his way up the southern side of the house, surprised to see her outside alone. After the pool incident, Michael just so happened to get the notion to keep her inside unless she was being transported to Franklin’s. _ Neighbors and their prying eyes, whaddya gonna do_, he’d said, but Trevor’s not stupid. 

When she’s cooped up inside, there are never any good excuses he can come up with to hang around. It drives him nuts that he even wants to. So when he spots her, hunched over some kind of plant like a toddler who’s just found a frog, his legs act on their own.

“Intruder alert, intruder alert,” he calls in a robotic voice, then imitates a siren. When she turns (and actually _beams _when she lays eyes on him), Trevor notices her gardening gloves and trowel, then the dirt that cakes the knees of the jeans she’s wearing. An old pair of Tracey’s, maybe, judging by the ostentatious rhinestone designs on the back pockets. Not that Trevor is looking anywhere near the back pockets. 

“Diggin’ for treasure? I bet Mikey’s got more than the family pets buried out here.”

Catherine peers up at him from under the brim of that oversized sunhat, snickering at the crude joke, and Trevor realizes he’s standing over her again. Stupid. Gotta stop doing that. He’s about to just plop down in the dirt beside her when she starts to rise. 

In a movement as natural as blinking, she holds out her hand and without thinking he takes it in his for the second time in as many weeks, surprised by his own gentle obedience as he helps her stand up. The skin of his palm is no less prickly this time once hers is no longer flush against it. She’s standing close, so close, and she isn’t moving away. Trevor swallows.

“Surprised the ol’ codger even let you out to play.” He brushes off the little crack in his voice.

Catherine throws an exaggerated look over each shoulder before whispering, “He didn’t.”

Then she throws her arms up and stands on tiptoe for a stretch. Trevor feels like he should avert his eyes for some reason, probably to avoid seeing the little sliver of stomach that’s exposed, so he mimes scanning the backyard like he’s supposed to. It hits him that Packie is probably getting impatient over on the other side of the house, waiting for Trevor to come trade places. Then Trevor’s time will be up and Packie will be over here taking Trevor’s chance at...whatever it is Trevor’s hoping to get from this interaction exactly. So fuck him.

Trevor holsters his gun in the waistband of his jeans and stoops to pick up the abandoned trowel. He gestures at Catherine with it, poking her lightly in the arm, earning himself another lopsided smirk. “So what _ are _ you doing out here? Besides undoing my good man Carlos’ hard work.”

Trevor snatches the trowel away playfully when she grabs for it, holding it easily out of her reach. Catherine puts on an exaggerated look of defeat, then plunges a hand into the labyrinthine tangle of leaves and vines weaving its way up the fence in front of them.

“Well, so, you see this vine?” Catherine holds it close to him, the stiff green tendril entwined in her long fingers, soft white petals brushing against Trevor’s shirt. Her eyes search his face expectantly, positively sparkling with eagerness in the harsh noon sun. Trevor nods, slowly, dully, like a spell’s been cast. Not the way he’d imagined this conversation going, but he’ll take it.

“Uh-huh. Honeysuckle.”

Catherine waggles a finger. “Not just any honeysuckle. It’s _ lonicera japonica_, Japanese honeysuckle. It gets planted because it’s pretty, but it’s an invasive species. See down here?”

She points to what was probably once a lovely bunch of tiny yellow flowers at the base of the cascade of honeysuckle, now droopy and faded to ochre. More vines like the one in her hands seem to have crept down and ensnared it. 

“It’s strangled this poor yarrow almost to death. And I bet the groundskeeper will leave the honeysuckle and pull out the yarrow, just because it’s not pretty anymore. So I’m saving him the trouble and digging it up myself.” Catherine reaches for the trowel again, but Trevor deftly maneuvers it to his other hand, snickering. She snaps her fingers like an old-timey cartoon villain, then continues, hands on her hips, “I have a couple empty planters at home. It’s not beyond saving.”

“Presumptuous little thing, ain’t ya?” Trevor chuckles. “Is there some sorta moral to this story? Other than you secretly bein’ some kinda hippy-dippy, socks-and-sandals-wearin’ eco-terrorist who tears up people’s landscaping for fun?”

“Aw, shut it,” she laughs, nudging him in the ribs. More tingling, more prickling. “I’ve been stuck inside, day in and day out, for going on two weeks now. I think I’m entitled to a little covert gardening.”

They share a comfortable silence, content to listen to the birds and the car horns and to feel the cool relief of the breeze rolling in lazily from somewhere out over the ocean. Catherine seems lost in thought and Trevor doesn’t mind waiting for her to find her way. 

“You know, that’s one downside to moving to the desert,” she says quietly, staring out over the swaying blades of imported grass with the expression of a sea captain that just watched her ship sink. “Can’t grow flowers as easily.”

“Bullshit,” Trevor snorts. She looks up at him, questioning. He sweeps his arm broadly at the unnaturally green carpet surrounding them. “You think any of this stuff got here because it was supposed to? Because it was easy? If Carlos can introduce invasive flora to this dried-up ol’ plot of dirt, then so can you.”

“And besides,” he adds, a sly grin plastered on his face. “The desert ain’t so bad. _ I’m _ there.”

They make their way slowly around the side of the house, weaving a meandering path, not talking about much of anything important. Trevor finds that it doesn’t matter one bit. Then, Catherine stops just short of the front gate and wraps her fingers around the bars, glancing out at the road. She tips her chin up to Trevor, and the yearning he sees, the _ misery_, plain as day, makes him feel a little woozy, like sunstroke.

“Trevor, will you take me somewhere?”

_ Anywhere_, Trevor’s brain helpfully provides. 

“No can do, short stack,” he says, leaning against the gate to effect an air of nonchalance. Catherine hasn’t looked away. He almost thinks he can see her lip trembling. “That is, unless you _ want _ Michael to hunt me down and string me up with my own innards.” 

She sighs and goes back to watching the shiny six-figure cars roll by. Trevor wonders what happened to the lightheartedness of just a couple minutes ago.

“Where is it you want to go, anyway?” Trevor’s voice is mild, barely audible, lacking its usual theatrics. Catherine looks the same way she probably would if he’d yelled it.

“My, um...one of my- well, my only friend, really. Pete. He asked me to visit him and his wife after I left Pershing. Really sweet old couple. I haven’t been able to answer his calls, and I know how he worries.”

“That’s them daddy issues talkin’,” Trevor quips, unable to think of anything useful to say. Catherine smiles at the joke, but it doesn’t seem genuine. It seems worn out.

“I don’t know, it would just…,” Catherine trails off, swallows, seems to struggle to let the words out. “It would be _ really _ nice to see him right now.”

Trevor gets the feeling she probably isn’t just talking about Pete.

\--

By the time Catherine completed the transition between Rockford Hills and Franklin’s Vinewood house for the second time, they were all pretty sure they were taking unnecessary precautions. 

The more time went by, the more it seemed that the disappearance of one of Los Santos Correctional’s board members may have truly been a one-in-a-million coincidence. Because, since then, even with Lester’s vast network of technological and human resources, nothing turned up about any Italians asking around for any cagey, emerald-eyed Irish broads with a penchant for victory rolls.

And as quiet as the Pegorinos had been, Niko Bellic may as well have been a ghost. No plane tickets to LS, no more shady emails, and certainly no goddamn money. 

Trevor stops gnawing at his cuticles when he makes eye contact with McReary patrolling down on the lawn, who gives him an ‘all clear’. At this point, Trevor doesn’t know that he’d even recognize the signal for trouble. Assuming he ever gets paid, this will be the easiest hundred and fifty grand he’s ever made. And it’s driving him absolutely loony. 

How long is he going to be trapped in this plastic prison, alternating only between sleeping and jerking off and standing around bored out of his mind? He has half a mind to cut his losses and fuck off back to Sandy Shores, where he can get ready for his trip south of the border. Where something actually exciting has the potential to happen. But he knows he won’t, because something is keeping him here. 

Three days ago, Catherine actually threw her head back in laughter in response to something he’d said. Yesterday, when he reached over her head to get a glass out of Michael’s kitchen cabinet, she didn’t so much as flinch. Now, as Trevor sits on Franklin’s back balcony long after sundown, sniper rifle across his lap, Gus is content to lay only a few feet away from him. The mutt isn’t constantly positioning himself between Trevor and Catherine anymore, almost like they’ve come to some kind of understanding - _ you don’t lay a finger on her and I don’t reopen those holes I punched in your arm_. Maybe soon he’ll let Trevor pet him. 

Hip-hop of some kind floats out into the sticky summer air from the living room, signaling the start of Franklin and Catherine’s near-nightly exploration of Franklin’s extensive vinyl collection. Trevor had been there when she first laid eyes on the glossy black shelves lining the walls, full to the brim of eclectic, carefully alphabetized records. That really opened the floodgates. He’d watched as, day by day, they discovered more and more common ground to stand on as they yapped endlessly about rap, funk and soul. Franklin impressed her with his encyclopedic musical knowledge and the two of them raved over his prized assortment of photos of him with various artists. Trevor also watched, with a burning in the pit of his stomach, their happy incredulity at the fact that they’d grown up in adjacent neighborhoods and had a couple of mutual friends and yadda fucking yadda. 

He turns in the deck chair and sees the two of them in the living room now. Catherine is dancing sloppily, which Trevor attributes to what must be her third or fourth glass of wine sloshing a little precariously in her hand. Franklin is nursing his own glass, saying something to her and laughing at her response. At some point Lamar had joined them. His lanky frame strolls into view from the kitchen, holding a bottle of beer in one hand and gesturing with a record in the other. Why is it so easy for them?

Trevor is no stranger to voyeurism, but it feels almost dirty watching them enjoy themselves like this. _ Christ_, she looks good tonight. Exactly like a classic Vinewood starlet, all doe-eyed and flush and not a single satin-smooth hair out of place in her faithful reproduction of those elaborate hairdos Trevor used to see on TV all the time growing up and in old black-and-white pictures of his mother. The kind with immaculate waves that catch the light, all gossamer softness that makes Trevor’s fingertips itch to run through them.

Trevor can’t imagine, doesn’t _ want _ to imagine, how much Michael is loving this. Having his own little pinup girl to fuck while his wife is conveniently away. He’s probably creaming his pants just over the fact that Catherine’s being hunted by the mob.

And they _ are _ fucking, aren’t they? It just makes sense. The two prettiest people Trevor knows. All he’d needed to confirm the suspicion was the sight of them standing next to each other in Michael’s foyer, Michael in his slick fucking suit and her in that dress and those stockings, those _ stockings_, speaking to him soft and low and Trevor could practically see what was left of that old pervert’s heart being kneaded like dough. It's how, sometimes, Michael will wordlessly pass his cigarette to her or pat the top of her head when she’s pouting about something or regale her with tales of the good old days over whiskey shots. 

Trevor turns back to the lawn, scrubbing the heels of his hands over his face and growling under his breath, chest tight. Who’s really the deviant here? Trevor. Trevor is, and always will be.

Goddammit, this needs to be _ done _ with already. He needs to get the hell away from here.

A few more mind-numbing minutes go by during which Gus starts snoring and Trevor thinks about how much he’d like to be doing the same. When he hears a wave of laughter and hooting coming from the little house party, he chances looking inside again. At her. His gaze travels from her fingers, wrapped elegantly around the stem of the glass, to the tiny gold watch worn facing in, down her uplifted arm to the gentle slope of the shoulders supporting it. 

He notes the way the dress she’d apparently convinced Michael to go out and get for her (_a lover’s gift? Michael, you fat, shallow, disloyal piece of garbage_) drapes across her collarbones perfectly. He can practically smell the perfume she’d no doubt dabbed there, light and sweet, a scent that takes him right back to the short Saskatchewan summers he spent tracking elk and gorging on honeysuckle nectar. 

He spends a little more time there, at the cleft where the bones meet, before dragging his eyes up the long, slender neck that joins her dainty jawline. Trevor’s eyes alight on her ever-red lips for only a second before he forces himself to look away, before he accidentally makes eye contact with her or something. He stands to hide his semi even though no one is watching and massages his neck roughly, begging himself to keep it together just a little longer. Packie comes by again and flashes a grin and a thumbs-up, only to have Trevor flip him off.

Inside, Lamar shakes his head at the awkwardly shuffling, slur-singing Catherine. “I can’t believe you think _ 3 Feet High _ is better than _ The Message_...I mean, shit, at least some people _ heard _ of Grandmaster Flash.”

“C’mon, Lamar,_ The Message _ was the only good song off that album an’ you...you _ know _ it. Take the nostalgia goggles off sometime, huh?”

The amicable bickering goes on for a bit longer, with Franklin interjecting when someone has their facts (or opinions) wrong. While he and Lamar get into it over something or other, Catherine happens to look up at the giant glass windows that lead to the back balcony. It’s dark out there, but she sees the back of Trevor’s head and his rumpled flannel shirt as he’s hunched over the railing, scanning the back lawn. 

She sees him supporting his weight on his sinewy and heavily tattooed forearms, exposed and accentuated by his rolled-up sleeves in that special way that a man’s can be. He doesn’t know, can’t possibly know, that the sight of him fills her head with the firmness of his muscle under her palm when she grabbed his arm in Michael’s pool. The tendons coiled like steel wire, tight with potential, just below the surface of his uncommonly warm, scarred skin. A faint heat starts pooling in her gut that would have alarmed her if she wasn’t quite so deep in the bottle. It feels strange and damn good. Even better, there’s no way she’ll remember it tomorrow.

Inhibitions obliterated, Catherine breaks into Franklin and Lamar’s conversation to ask, “What do you guys know about Trevor?”

The two men look at each other, then back at her. She’s stopped dancing, if you could call it that. Lamar quirks an eyebrow. “What the hell you wanna know about that crazy motherfucker for?”

“I don’t know, I mean, I know all about Michael being QB and Franklin selling cigarettes, but him...he’s the only one I haven’t talked to...like...” Catherine trails off, gesturing weakly between them and regretting saying anything. “You know, like-”

“Oh, you mean like normal people,” Franklin finishes with a humorless laugh, and Catherine cocks her head to the side as though that wasn’t quite right. “That ain’t possible. Dude is seriously fuckin’ twisted.”

“Like how?”

“Like, homie is on a whole ‘nother plane of existence that those of us in the middle of the bell curve cain’t even fuckin’ compre_hend_,” Lamar says, and Franklin is shaking his head with distant eyes that have seen some shit. 

“But I’ve seen you guys go out together, like once Franklin is off duty or whatever. Just the other day I saw you guys leaving in his truck, happy as a...buncha clams.”

“You think we got a fuckin’ choice?” Lamar scoffs, scratching his eyebrow as cover while he shoots a cautious glance at the man on the balcony as though he's liable to go feral at any moment. “Nah, I ain’t _ havin’ _ that dude show up at my crib, molestin’ me while I sleep.”

Catherine frowns, sympathy being pinged even through the wine-induced haze. The other two have started to swap stories in the way a PTSD support group might when they’re interrupted again.

“Do you think Trevor likes me?”

She’d thought it an innocent question, but the way Franklin and Lamar full-body cringe has her scrambling to clarify. “I just mean, like, I don’t think he likes me being around. Like, he’s been nicer lately, but he just...I don’t know...I think he hates having to babysit me, which I mean, is understandable-”

Lamar clicks his tongue, then runs his eyes over Catherine and her slinky red dress in a way that’s anything but subtle. “Homie’s a lil’ gay. Otherwise he’d be trippin’ over himself to talk to a fuckin’ smokeshow like you.”

Her face goes bland as stone. “Gee, thanks, Lamar, you’re too kind.”

Lamar, surprising no one, doesn't take the hint, and somehow the topic turns to whether Catherine still has her Catholic school uniform. She shoots a confused Michael a grateful look when he arrives early for the night shift. He rules that it’s time to pack it in, chastising Franklin for staying up so late and letting Catherine drink so much. Catherine is giggling as she says with a touch of sheepishness that maybe Franklin had better handle putting away the vinyl. He replies with a fond smile that yes, maybe he’d better.

Once Lamar has gone down to the other guest room and passed out (only after lengthy, slurred protestations when Catherine once again wouldn’t give him her number) and they’ve finished cleaning up, Trevor hears the door slide open behind him. A certain tipsy broad almost topples out, hair a little more mussed up than before.

“Well, what do you know, it’s little miss liquored-up,” Trevor teases. She waves him off with that crooked little grin.

“Just a little buzzed, that’s all.”

Catherine comes and stands beside him, leaning against the railing and taking in the dazzling city down at the base of Vinewood Hills. Laughter and music carry over from the gathering at the neighbor’s house, as does the distinctly summery smell of the grill. A night that verges on perfect. Trevor doesn’t know what to do with himself when she’s this close, as always.

To Trevor's unending curiosity, they slip easily right back into the groove they dug for themselves in Michael's garden. They observe Gus and Chop's race around Franklin's pool, commentating like sports announcers at a horse track, placing bets on Police Puppy versus Hood Hound. They make faces at Packie as he goes by, and peals of laughter echo down the rolling hills when Trevor bends over to moon him. They argue over whether Pißwasser is actual piss, reminisce on the golden days of punk. Catherine doesn’t see Trevor’s gaze lazily roaming the soft contours of her face as they shoot the shit. Investigating the new designs on her skin that he notices every time he’s allowed to peek for longer than a few socially-acceptable seconds. It should feel wrong to ogle Michael’s girl like this. He feels irritation prick at the base of his skull.

That irritation, a little itch that's easy enough to ignore, becomes full-blown_ psoriasis_ when Catherine launches into a spirited retelling of a memory she assures Trevor he will find just _hilarious_, something involving Niko and a flock of pigeons. Her face is the picture of serenity, wistful and daydreamy. The longer he looks, the longer he listens, the worse it begins to feel, until it becomes a now-familiar tension in his muscles that he knows will leave him feeling exhausted. Even more tiring is the constant internal acrobatics, the oscillating at breakneck speeds between keeping her at arm’s length for the good of both of them and laughing at himself for even entertaining the idea that she’d want to be kept any closer. 

Of _ course _ he wants her. Of _ course _ he wants to see that killer fucking body writhing underneath him, his fingers tangled in those thick, dark locks. Her plush crimson lips calling out his name as he fucks her good, fucks her hard. Or soft, or literally any way she’d want it. Really knowing her in the best way two people can know each other, in Trevor’s opinion.

But he wrestles with the fact that sex _ isn’t _ all he wants from her, not by a long shot, and he has no idea what to do with that information or what it even means. He just Wants. And it fucks up his brain, turning it in and in and _ in _ on itself in painful contortions until all that’s left is confusion, and confusion has a way of leading to anger.

Trevor sees himself about to ruin it, ruin everything, and he has no idea how to stop.

“Trevor? What’s wrong?”

Trevor can’t bring himself to look at her, afraid she’ll see..._something_. He notices distantly how white his knuckles are and how his fingers ache from gripping the railing. Pain shoots through his arm and down his left side from that stupid goddamn dog bite. A hand alights there delicately, and it would be the best thing in the world just to lean into that touch. He shrugs her off instinctively.

“Trev-”

“You know, sweet pea, I’ve been wondering something.” Trevor’s voice is a growl that reverberates through his chest and instantly, completely changes the air between them, the carefree July twilight growing cold and suffocating.

Catherine isn’t saying anything and Trevor knows he can_ not _ look at her right now or he will see the concern or fear or whatever it is in her big green eyes that makes him feel about ten inches tall. He _ hates _ that one glance can do that to him. 

Trevor’s head drops between his shoulders, his chin to his chest, eyes screwed shut. “Yep. Been wondering about this particular something for a while now.”

Catherine tracks his erratic movements with stone-stillness. Trevor is again the volatile man looming at the edge of the light, dangerous and unnerving. A man to be feared.

“You know Michael is married, right? I mean, I was _ there. _Helped him fix his bowtie. Saw the ‘till death do us part’-s and ate the shitty cake and threw the stupid rice.”

“Trevor, you’re not making sense-”

“So, I’m just over here wondering, you know, how long did it take?”

Trevor straightens up suddenly, and the movement makes Catherine flinch. Her body begs her to flee. She’d thought she was done running from him.

“How long did it take you to go crawling into his bed? One, two nights? I mean, did it even slow you _ down? _ Knowing you were helping him break every single one of those promises I heard him make to that witch? And, I mean, she _ is _ a witch, don’t get me wrong.”

Things are coming together now. Catherine feels very, very sober.

“But, I mean, come _ on_, right? Make up your _ mind_.” Trevor’s tone is bordering on crazed, even to his own ears. “Which is it? Is it Michael, or is it this Russian jackoff who doesn’t even care enough about you to come look after you himself? Huh? Jesus fuck, you're just as bad as Mikey is."

Trevor finally forces himself to meet her eyes. What he sees isn’t the hurt he’d wanted to inflict, or even the disgust mixed with pity that oozes out of just about every woman he’s ever interacted with. It isn’t even anger. It’s disappointment, and it breaks him.

Catherine’s tone is even, but it simmers just below the surface. “Do you feel better now? Does it make you feel like a big, strong man, standing there calling me a homewrecker? A slut?”

Trevor reaches out to her, adrift, unmoored. “Hey, come on, that’s not what-”

Catherine steps back, hands up, lost to him forever. Her eyes narrow to slits. “Fuck you, Trevor.”

His hand drops uselessly back to his side. He watches her jerk open the sliding glass door, then turn back to him with one foot inside. She isn’t looking at him anymore, and she might not ever do so on purpose again.

“Oh, and by the way, it’s neither.” 

Her last venomous words hang in the air even after she’s regained composure and breezed past Michael and Franklin, who are gathered around Franklin’s laptop at the kitchen counter. They stop laughing abruptly, Michael’s face turning apprehensive as she passes. Catherine waves off whatever he says to her, keeps walking to the stairs that lead down to her room. Whatever he saw on her face or heard in her voice has Michael up and storming toward the balcony door.

Franklin hangs back, leans against the doorframe, exuding a cool demeanor that poorly masks his unease. Trevor hates being regarded that way. A liability.

Michael is eye to eye with Trevor in a second, throwing him off guard. Trevor can’t help that he likes a challenge; his responding grin is fierce, jackal-like. 

“You move fast for a fat old f-”

Michael’s voice is low and dangerous as it comes spitting through his gritted teeth. “I don’t know what the _ fuck _ you think you’re doing, Trevor, but you’re gonna knock it off right fuckin’ quick or you’re off the job.”

Trevor is reminded of years gone by and how Michael reserved this tactic for serious threats. For people and things that just got in the way. He shoves Michael away from him, watches the spark of rage roar to life in the other man’s eyes as he stumbles back. Feels that same glint in his own.

“You seriously wanna fuckin’ square off with me over this, you keener piece-a shit?” Trevor hears himself bellowing, past losing control. His voice goes high, mocking, “What, oh, widdle Pwincess Cathy’s in twouble, so now her white knight has to come slay the dragon, huh? When are you gonna let her fight her own battles?”

“I’m serious, man.”

“Yeah, well, ain’t we all. So fuckin’ serious. That’s the problem these days.”

Michael adjusts his suit jacket, rolls his stiff neck from side to side, and Trevor knows the danger is gone. It makes Trevor want to tear his throat out.

“I’m takin’ over the rest of your shift, T,” Michael says woodenly. Trevor hates him for backing off. Hates Michael for looking down on him, like Michael doesn’t have anger issues out the ass. “Go home and cool off and be back in the morning.”

Catherine watches Trevor’s truck tear off down the hillside in a grey cloud of exhaust, taillights veering around the corner and out of sight.

\--

This time, back at the Unicorn, Trevor accepts the offer of coke and company. Neither is as distracting as he’d hoped they’d be.

“Trevy, baby, whatsamatter?” Crystal whines, lowering herself onto a dick that refuses to stay hard. 

_ Your eyes aren’t green enough_, his mind thinks against his will, but he only says, “Nothin’s wrong with me, it’s that blow. It’s doin’ weird shit.”

She ignores him. “You want me to call my boyfriend over again?” 

Trevor throws his head back against the sofa in frustration. Crystal leans forward and attacks his exposed neck, brushing against his tendons with lips and teeth, running her hands over his broad chest. He groans and can feel himself filling her up again, but all too quickly it’s weird. Off. Trevor holds Crystal back by the shoulder and she huffs.

He pulls a crumpled hundred from his pocket. “No, I don’t want you to call your dumbass boyfriend. I want you to take this and go home.”

The woman hops off of him and starts yanking her panties up her toned dancer’s legs, grumbling about men and their excuses, while Trevor stays sat on the shitty couch with his jeans in a pool at his ankles and the bill in his hand. He just sits there and hates himself for thinking of a woman that wants nothing to do with him while this cute, curvy redhead is right in front of him, willing and oh so able. He hates himself long after she’s gone.

\--

When Franklin pulls up to the little house in El Burro, the first thing he notices is the smell. 

Something rotten drifts over the lawn, worsened by the heat. Chop and Gus, best buds by now, follow him happily across the grass to Catherine’s Blista, play-fighting, but they both begin sniffing feverishly when they reach the car. Franklin grimaces and pulls the collar of his T-shirt up over his nose. 

The car’s front windows had been left open just enough that two weeks’ worth of rain and bird shit and god knows what else have thoroughly ruined the seats. He sees that Catherine hadn’t been exaggerating about the cake - there’s moldy frosting all over the backseat and floor of her car. Franklin makes a mental note to see what Hao can do with a thorough detailing.

Franklin moves to the front door, careful to stay out of the moonlight and stick to the shadows. The last thing he needs is a nosy neighbor calling the cops. The familiar weight of his handgun in his waistband is a comfort.

As he steps onto the porch, covered in a rainbow assortment of potted plants in desperate need of watering, and reaches for the door, several things happen in quick succession. He notices that the fern next to the doormat is on its side, spilling its dirt and dead leaves into the cracks in the concrete. Right then, Gus begins to whine. Franklin sees that the door is already open ever so slightly, wood splintered around the knob and strike plate, and his heart drops into his stomach.

Franklin dials Michael as a shadow falls over him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >_>;
> 
> Edit: Some minor changes to the scenes at Franklin's house to make things flow a little smoother (hopefully).


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An f-slur is used in this chapter, so be careful if that's distressing for you.

Every muscle, nerve, and tendon has turned to steel, locking Catherine in place at the entrance to Michael’s living room.

She has a couple of hours until dinner, so she figured she’d spend them in the grainy comfort of film noir with Michael’s new high-def copy of _ Double Indemnity_, maybe even squeeze in a quick nap. But Trevor shared the same inclination, apparently, because it’s the sight of his lanky form splayed out on the couch that made her freeze up this way. Her neurons are tripping over themselves to fire off alarms, her survival instincts yelling at her to just escape to her room and wait for Michael’s shift to be over. Then he can take up his recent role as the comforting buffer that keeps Trevor safely away. 

Bafflingly, infuriatingly, she bites those instincts back. Not only that, but she moves _ closer_.

She must have some kind of goddamn death wish, she decides, because only someone who wanted to be eviscerated would be standing this close to a sleeping Trevor Philips. Particularly the version of Trevor Philips that had apparently been resurrected at Franklin’s house the other night. _ Bogu iza leđa, _as Niko would say - behind God’s back. Whatever she does now, she’s beyond anyone’s help.

The harsh light of noon splits the quiet darkness of the living room, casting a white-hot bar across Trevor’s chest that threatens to reach his face within the hour. Maybe that spot of sun was the reason he picked the couch. It makes Catherine think of the way a cat curls up in a sunbeam. He certainly looks that content.

Her conversation with Michael by the pool, the first day Trevor made any discernible effort to talk to her, replays in her ears. Although Michael insisted that the opposite was true, Catherine is struck in this moment by how _ human _ Trevor looks. She notes the placid, measured rise and fall of his breathing, in such strong contrast with his usual manic presence. He’s always, _ always _ moving, positively buzzing with chaotic energy that his wiry body seems barely able to contain. Nails being bitten probably to the quick, knees bouncing, hand carding through what’s left of his hair. His relentless fidgeting is just one entry on a long list of reasons that he activates Catherine’s fight-or-flight something fierce. (Or...used to? Still does, definitely. Right?) Trevor walks fast, talks fast, drives fast, seems to think even faster. It’s a wonder that he even sleeps at all, come to think of it.

But sleep he does, somehow, even though his long limbs are distributed in a manner not unlike a crash test dummy that’s been launched through a windshield. He’s still got his boots on and something about that fact doesn’t surprise her at all. Michael’s going to flip shit when he sees the mud, and that image tugs at one corner of her mouth. 

The Love Fist tank top he’s wearing is almost as shabby as his boots, and she averts her eyes quickly, like the nun her mother had always wanted her to be, when she finds that his exposed upper arms are just as nice to look at as his forearms. Instead, she focuses on the peeling faces of the aging rock stars looking up at her from his shirt, smirking at the tough-guy expressions they’re pulling. Of _ course _ he likes that terrible band. They’re not all that unlike Trevor himself: corny, goofy, aggravating. But there’s something undeniable about their frankness. A virtue in their raw honesty, even if that honesty reveals them to be boorish and crude. Products of another time. A simpler, _ older _ time. Much older. Like, probably born in the 1960s.

Catherine chances a look at those forearms again, remembers their heat and their strength without meaning to. In the same way as his battle-weary face, every scar, line, and lesion, every track mark, every blown-out vein, they hint at a life hard-won and well-lived. Boundaries pushed and shoved until they shattered. A man that is the culmination of the choices he’s made. Things that linger, smolder, burn. Though she knows it’s foolish in the extreme to even think she knows anything about the way his mind works, sometimes Catherine thinks she can see the same thoughts in Trevor’s head when he looks at her tattoos. Once you have them, you know: they’re an archive. A mural of past selves, worse selves, better selves. Again, it’s foolish, but...sometimes she thinks she can see Trevor wondering what exactly her body is a shrine to. 

And boy, that really does things it ought not do, the thought of Trevor Philips wondering about her body.

_This is your conscience speaking._ _How would _you_ feel if _you_ woke up and Trevor was...you know what, nevermind. Do not go down that road._

Catherine distracts herself by trying to puzzle out the types of things Trevor's tattoos might say about him, with their ink all worn and faded with time and probably very little in the way of proper care. The inexplicable ‘Cut Here’ that dots its way around the base of his solid neck is at the top of the list of things to ask him about. Someday. Maybe. 

Along with...huh. 

Well, unless Trevor knows another Michael (entirely possible), there’s a memorial to the person whose couch he’s currently muddying up, etched eternally on the planes of his bicep. Catherine wonders at this for probably far too long, until Trevor makes a noise somewhere between a grunt and a cough and she’s upstairs catching her breath behind the guest room door before he’s even rolled over.

\--

A heavy scent, garlicky and oniony, wakes Trevor from abstract, unpleasant dreams. His mouth watering, he kicks off the blanket he doesn’t remember grabbing and heads for the kitchen. Michael must’ve ordered out from that really good Italian place a couple streets over. He wonders whether there’ll actually be any left for him, but that train of thought is derailed when, instead of styrofoam boxes and plastic silverware, he sees someone bowed over the stove. 

At first, Trevor thinks it’s Amanda, taste-testing whatever she’s stirring and then nodding in approval, but he knows better than to accuse her of cooking something that smells _ that _ edible. No, the curve of this face is one he knows quite well by now, unmistakable. He’s been avoiding that face like he would a gorgon’s and he knows it’s in her best interest - in everyone’s best interest - for him to keep right on doing that.

“Smells good,” he says instead, and almost has to physically restrain himself before he tears out his own tongue for being such a traitor. She slowly turns to him and her eyes, her wonderful, terrible eyes, brimming with as much turmoil as Trevor feels, have him etched in stone immediately. 

What Catherine sees lurking in the doorway resembles a wounded animal more than a man, looking up at her somehow, even though he’s a good bit taller. The circles under Trevor’s eyes are even more opaque than usual, his skin sallow, like he didn’t just spend the afternoon unconscious on the couch. He’s halfway in, halfway out of the kitchen, looking like a caged dog primed to bolt at the first opportunity. Uncertainty is an odd look for him.

That’s all it takes. Whether because Catherine is too damn forgiving or just that hopelessly naive (read: stupid), something about seeing him this way, his vulnerability, quells the storm in her.

“Hi, Trevor,” she says gently, and beckons him over, pointing to whatever she just tasted. “Did I add too much lemon juice?”

Trevor only stares. Catherine sees him struggling, grappling with demons whose names she doesn’t know, but thinks she might be able to guess. He breathes a heavy sigh.

“Look, what I said, it- I’m-”

Trevor feels like his words have expanded in his throat, cutting off the airflow. Like uttering them will do him in. _ Just do it, you fucking pussy. _

“You’re not- you’re not a homewrecker, okay? Or a whore.”

The downturned corners of Trevor’s mouth plead with her, as do his tired eyes. Unusually soft. Even...repentant. Catherine is reminded of the stained-glass saints from her childhood. She is reminded of all the times she’s fallen for a line of bullshit exactly like this from men somehow much scarier than this one.

“Hmmm, _ actually_,” she croons, fingertip to her chin in a dramatic thinking gesture, “What I said was that you were calling me a slut, I do believe. Not a whore.”

“Would you let me be serious for once?” he scolds, and that centers her. He mutters, “First person I’ve apologized to in years and you make a joke out of it.”

“I’m sorry,” Catherine says, and she looks it. Words that come so easily for her are like knives against Trevor’s throat when he tries to say them. “I didn’t realize you were apologizing.”

It sounds just like something his mother would say, trying to get a rise out of him. Trevor’s temper flares and she sees it in the square of his shoulders, the clench of his fists. It looks just like something her father would do, trying to scare her into obedience. Trevor’s voice comes out clipped. “Trying to.”

The silence is charged as both try to remember that the person standing in front of them is not guilty of the crimes of his mother or her father.

Catherine breaks it first. “It really did hurt, you know.”

“I know. I’m-” 

“And it’s also not true.”

“I _ know_. I was just...fuck, I don’t even know what I was.”

“A fucking asshole,” they say in unison, and their surprised laughter brings the final wall tumbling down. Carefully, as though the whole world is made of eggshells, Trevor goes and stands close, hovering at Catherine’s left. That rich, stout scent is stronger here, and it combines oddly with the sweetness of her perfume, enough to make his head hurt. But he breathes in deep anyway, holds it like a hit off a joint, trying to memorize it. She lifts a spoonful of the white sauce to him, and he confirms that it tastes as good as it smells.

With his very few simple, painful words that burned as they tore their way out, Catherine has forgiven him. Well, _ maybe _ forgiven, tenuously, but not forgotten. It seems he hasn’t completely destroyed the foundation, just cracked it. It’s unrealistic, he knows, but Trevor swears to himself that he will never do anything to make her hide from him ever again.

And just like that, they’ve settled right back into that groove. How exactly does she make it seem so effortless?

“So, pasta, huh? Not a big pot of boiled mush you _ Oirish _ like to pass off as stew?” he asks in a cartoonish accent from his spot on the barstool, folding paper airplanes out of Michael’s mail.

Catherine sets the spoon in some kind of little bowl and wipes her hands on a towel before checking the pasta. “Nothing as sophisticated as cheese fries and gravy, _ eh? _”

Trevor clutches at invisible pearls. “Well, I never! You’ll leave our national dish out of this if you know what’s good for you, _ Lucky Charms_.”

Her grin is positively impish. “Oh-ho, so we’re finally admitting our heritage, are we, _ Hockey Puck? _”

“Hey, hey, hey, Canadian-_American_, alright? Always with the snappy comebacks, this one. Sheesh.”

As Catherine turns away to adjust something on the stove, he can’t focus on her response because his eyes are just doing what they want again. Zeroing in on the way her shoulders are a little pink from all that “clandestine gardening” out in the unforgiving San Andreas sun. She isn’t all done up in the usual way, but she looks good just like this, Trevor thinks. More than good. The type of woman for whom Trevor fucking Philips should be the absolute last resort to even look at, much less talk to. 

_ It’s neither_, he vividly remembers her saying that night, after he’d just finished making a complete ass of himself. ‘Neither’, Trevor has to force himself to remember, does not mean ‘no one’. 

So badly that it hurts to restrain himself, he wants to test the new boundaries that those words have laid for him. Wants to reach out across the counter and brush the dusky hair from her sunburnt shoulder. To just be there as she rattles off the name of every flower in the gaudy arrangement on Michael’s table. To know the meaning behind every little line of every last tattoo. Wants to _ tell _ Catherine how much he wants these things, against his better judgement. Wants to know what the actual fuck his cruel, merciless brain is doing, forcing these wants on him. Above all, Trevor wants to know what Catherine wants, but he knows he’s already walking a tightrope over a canyon of his own making. 

“You didn’t answer my question, _ Lucky._” Trevor finishes approximately his zillionth paper airplane, expertly designed to hit her square on the back of the head. She swats it away and it lands in the aircraft boneyard at her feet. “What made you decide to go all domestic on us all of a sudden? Bad case of hybristophilia?”

She crinkles her nose at him. He sees a slight dusting of freckles he never noticed before. “You wish. And don’t you start with that awful nickname, _ Puck._” She opens the oven, glances inside. “The only way I could get Lester to agree to come for dinner was if he got to pick what we ate. He picked alfredo because he’s boring and because he probably knew better than to ask for chicken tendies.”

Trevor chuckles. “Gee, Lester’s joining us from under his rock? What’s the occasion?”

There is a noticeable pause. Something about it isn’t right. It sets Trevor’s teeth on edge.

“Oh, well, um.”

Another pause, longer this time.

“Michael is gonna tell you all officially during dinner. He and I talked about it last night and he decided. You’re off the hook. I think he wants to do one more shift, just to be-”

Trevor’s low brow knits itself. “‘Off the hook’, wha, what’s that mean?”

Catherine uncrosses and re-crosses her arms, shifts her weight to the other leg. “Well, just what it sounds like. You guys have put up with this long enough. It’s honestly kind of ridiculous at this point. So I’m going home.”

“Oh, _ Michael _ decided, huh,” Trevor says with a tight smirk, and his tongue worries at the corner of his mouth. He doesn’t know when he started drumming the counter with his fingertips. “Well ain’t it just like him to elect himself king. Where is that slob, anyway? And his prodigy?”

Michael and Packie are making the final rounds, Catherine explains, and Franklin has been assigned to check out her house, just as a precaution. She certainly can’t pay them half a million dollars, but she knows her way around the kitchen well enough that she can feed them a half-decent meal before she goes. One last round of drinks and maybe a celebratory cigar. Michael’s even letting Gus come in. Truly a momentous fucking day. 

_ Don’t, do NOT, ask if you can be the one to drop her off at home, Philips. And then what, anyway? What exactly would that accomplish, other than making you look like a gross old creep? A gross old creep who would then know where she lives? It’s time to put this the fuck to rest. _

“Well, you won’t catch me complaining,” Trevor says as casually as possible, not sure if he’s even responding to the right part of what she said. He leans back on the stool and tries to roll the tension from his shoulders. “I haven’t eaten like this since, psh, probably before you were born.”

Catherine sighs that Franklin’s the only one who seems to care what goes into his body. Trevor’s lack of reply shoots the conversation directly in the head, and the silence isn’t as pleasant as the ones they’ve shared recently. Only when Catherine moves to stand across from him does he look up from the paper he’s folded and re-folded so much that it’s falling apart.

“I have something to apologize for, too.”

Catherine gestures to the healing bite marks on Trevor’s forearm, resting on the cold marble between them. It’s certainly better than it was a couple of weeks ago, well enough that he doesn’t need to bandage it anymore, but he’s going to be scarred for good. He lifts his arm, twists it around some.

“It still smarts a little,” Trevor admits. The image of her touching it tenderly like she did Franklin’s sprained wrist flashes across his mind, making the hair on his arms stand up. He clears his throat. “But. You did what you had to do. No hard feelings.”

Trevor hazards a glance at her face and starts to panic when he sees that her eyes are getting wet. Oh fuck, he does _ not _ want to deal with a crying chick right now. Not with his own head so utterly fucked.

“Trevor,” she starts, and her voice wavers just enough that his stomach turns to liquid dread. “Thank you. For not shooting him. Without Gus, I, I wouldn’t…”

To his surprise, impulse takes over when a tear rolls down Catherine’s cheek, his own tortured thoughts promptly forgotten. Like seeing it awakened some long-dormant moral imperative. Trevor’s up and walking around the counter to her with no idea what he’ll do when he gets there. “Hey, no, hey, it’s-”

He isn’t sure if they have the world’s worst or most perfect timing, but Michael and Packie come in from patrolling right then. Trevor decides it’s the former when Michael catches sight of him standing near the visibly shaken young woman, half-stooping over her with his hands outstretched. He braces for armageddon, but Catherine has somehow dried her eyes and put on a very convincing smile in that seconds-long span, and Michael’s suspicion turns to griping when she enlists his help in setting the table. She probably has no clue how much she just saved his ass. 

Packie points and laughs and accuses Michael of being pussy-whipped but is quickly grumbling right alongside when he gets ordered to grab a few bottles of wine and the wine glasses. Catherine’s shifted the mood in the blink of an eye. Quibbling with Michael about whether knowing how to set a table is a waste of time. Reminiscing with Packie about big, loud family dinners after Sunday mass. It’s nice, Trevor thinks with a weird pang in his chest. Nice in a way that’s better suited for squeaky-clean family television than for a bunch of thieving murderers. Nice in a way that feels completely alien.

_ Neither_, Trevor reminds himself, and that word alone launches a thousand ships each time her voice echoes in his head. A fleet that has to be sunk with cannons, and it has to be done right the fuck _ now_, now that she’s leaving for good, but Trevor is equipped with a peashooter.

Michael is setting the last knife on the wrong side of the plate and upside down for good measure when his phone rings. He shushes Catherine’s objections, gleefully holding her back from the misplaced silverware with one arm while he answers.

“Yo, Frank, what’s-”

Trevor doesn’t need to see the color drain from Michael’s face to know something is very, very wrong.

\--

Catherine huddles on the edge of the tub in Michael’s guest bathroom, the designated hiding spot if shit were to go down. And shit has indeed gone down. _ Is _ going down. She’d seen the deadly gleam of Packie’s SMG as he closed her in here, the matching look in his eye, and that’s when, oh god, it suddenly became sickeningly real. She closes her eyes to stop the room from spinning. 

The Pegorinos had been waiting for them. For Franklin. _ God_, she feels like such an idiot. There must have been a fuck-up somewhere. Something she should have done differently. They’d gotten sloppy recently. She hadn’t been covering her face when she switched between houses. Hell, she’d spent untold hours traipsing around outside, able to be seen clearly talking to Trevor _ and _ Packie at least a few times. Or maybe they’d tapped the phones, or gotten information out of some other poor soul, or... Her teeth start to chatter. 

Michael hadn’t wasted a moment after hanging up the phone. “McReary, get Eddie over here, and send Gustavo to El Burro. T, _ please _ tell me you’ve got a-”

“Chopper at Vespucci. On it.” 

“Once he’s got Catherine, McReary, you get your ass over to the rest of us, and you better come strapped with more than that. Frank says they got carbines.”

Trevor had whirled toward the door, fumbling in his pocket for the earpiece, but Catherine had twisted her fist into the back of his shirt, shit-scared and absolutely useless. 

“Trevor, Michael, my god, whatever you do, please be careful.”

Catherine has no way of knowing how much time passes before she hears another voice downstairs, her terror only dissipating slightly when Packie can be heard barking orders rather than threats. She allows herself the small indulgence of wishing Niko were here and it opens the floodgates of memories. Memories of Niko’s warnings, his attempts to keep his distance from her, his promises that he would only bring her trouble. That she was putting herself at risk that he wouldn’t always be able to mitigate. Catherine had thought them such melodramatic things to say at the time. Too late she realized that she wouldn’t be the only one suffering the consequences of her stupid fucking insistence on playing with fire. 

She leaps to her feet when she hears the gravel of Trevor’s voice on the other side of the door, over Packie’s radio, all static and urgency.

“_P. Have her out on the tennis court in five, over._”

“Say again, over?”

“_It’s the only place I can land this thing, goddammit, just do it! Over and out!_”

As forecast, the thundering of blood through Catherine’s ears is replaced by an ever more deafening rumble, one that should bring comfort but only takes her back to the nightmare about the tornado. White and red lights strobe throughout the house as Packie takes her hand and leads her down the stairs. He’s saying something, but it’s too loud and Catherine’s too dazed. She shouts at him as they race through the kitchen to remember to turn off the oven and he just rolls his eyes.

She doesn’t remember making it to the tennis court, but now she’s seeing the chopper touch down in the middle of it, the ropes of the net straining and popping instantly under its weight. She watches from outside her body as Packie throws open the passenger door and urges her inside. Trevor reaches out a hand to steady her, and their eyes meet when she grips his good arm. Of the four men tasked with protecting her, Trevor would have been her last guess for having the patience and finesse to be a pilot. Maybe, instead of being tortured to death by mobsters, her body will be found in a hunk of fiery wreckage emblazoned with “Fuck Da Feds”. 

“It’s okay, Lucky. I got you.”

And she believes it. Trevor’s voice cuts through the ringing in Catherine’s ears and motivates her sluggish limbs to clamber the rest of the way up. Her hair, flying wildly around the cab, falls suddenly flat as Packie seals her in. She can barely see him through the dark strands, but she catches his nod when she presses her palm to the window and begs him to stay safe. 

Gravity pulls at her guts, nauseating and insistent as the ground falls away and the lights of Rockford Hills shrink to mere droplets in the sea of intense electric beauty that is Los Santos after dark. She stares at the spot she last saw Packie, sprinting back to the house while baffled neighbors and barking dogs flocked to their yards, long after any of it can be seen.

They’re over the reservoir when something envelopes her head, and she would have jumped right out of her clammy skin if she hadn’t heard Trevor’s voice in her ears. Just a headset.

“Strap in, ‘cause we got half a state to go.”

His expression is not that of a man whose friends and partners are in a firefight against the goddamn _ mob_. On the contrary; he looks positively _ elated_. Catherine’s voice sounds small and weak as she asks where they’re going.

Trevor’s responding hoot startles her. She has to hold the headset away from her ears. “Safest place in all-a San Andreas!” He adopts a convincing redneck accent. “Yessiree! Long as ya don’t mind hillbillies shootin’ out yer satellite dish an’ cah-yotes stealin’ yer newborn!”

Trevor looks taken aback by the horror that overtakes his passenger’s features. “Flint...Flint County?”

He throws back his head and laughs heartily. “Not quite _ that _ depraved, but a close second. No, no, see, you ‘n me, we’re gonna lay low in my neck of the woods. Good ol’ Sandy Shores!” He thumps the console. “_Fuck _ it’ll be good to be back.”

This energy is too much to handle right now. She settles back and tries to think of the name of the song blasting through the chopper’s audio system, but Trevor’s headbanging is distracting. She’s grateful for it. For Trevor.

“Come on now, don’t look so down in the dumps,” he says at a surprisingly normal volume, flipping switches and checking gauges. Seeing it makes Catherine feel a little less like she’s going into cardiac arrest.

“Give me one good reason why I should not make my permanent home in the dumps,” she says flatly, stretching her legs out in the footwell. “Seems to me like I better start getting comfy down here.”

“Those guys are pros! In fact, I'm jealous I'm not bustin' heads right there with 'em. Little Gussy-Wussy is in good hands.”

Catherine crosses her arms. “It’s not just my _ dog _ I’m worried about, Trevor.” She holds her breath a moment, then, “I just wish Niko could be-”

“Hey, look,” Trevor snaps and shoots her a look still tinged with something untamed. “Your friend called _ us _ for a reason, alright? We’re the cheapest professionals money can buy.” He looks almost thoughtful. “‘Course, they’re down their best man because _ someone _ had to cart your ass to the desert, but, eh, they’ll be fine. Probably.”

Great.

Catherine watches Trevor work for a while, his practiced movements lulling her into calm as she lets her mind wander down the paths he might have trodden to get that confident in the air. Too wired to sleep when Trevor suggests it, she watches the coast, counts lights on the GOH, regrets the choices that led to her fleeing over the mountains while the others fight for their lives. 

She’s been resting against the window, naming landmarks to herself for an hour or so, wiping at her eyes and sniffling every once in a while, when the chopper gives a jolt that brings her forehead in painful contact with the plexiglass. 

“Ow! What-” Catherine rubs at the spot while Trevor guffaws and rights them. Dick. The clamoring in her heart shuts up a moment, long enough to let her smile.

  
  


\--

  
  


“Ron! _ Ronald!_”

“Ye-ye-yeah Trevor, sorry Trevor, receiving you loud and clear.”

“Excellent! I’m due to land within the half hour. Bring me and my guest suitable transportation, on the double!”

“Wh-”

“Don’t _ question _ me, Jakowski! Just get it done!”

Catherine tries to sleep through Trevor’s barking, but even with the headset off it’s impossible. Sunrise floods the cockpit and breaks up her murky dreams with dreamsicle orange and cotton candy pink. Echoes of imagined gunfire give way to the droning blades over her head and she has a nice stretch that goes from fingertips to toes.

“Oh, nice of you to join us!” Trevor crows, raising his eyebrows at her. “Some of us had to slave away over pedals and levers all night just so you could have yourself a nice little nap.”

Catherine wiggles in her seat, adjusting. “You wouldn’t have even known I was sleeping if you’d kept your eyes on the road, mister.”

“Your sawing logs in my ear for the last four hours was proof enough, little lady,” he shoots back, grinning wider than Catherine’s ever seen, then adds, “Might want to check your phone, it’s been going off nonstop. Didn’t know I was toting a celebrity!”

She scrolls through the unread messages and sees the one she needed to see, sent from Michael just a couple of hours ago - _ we r all ok_. Catherine clutches the phone to her chest in her left hand with a sigh and crosses herself instinctively with the right. Trevor watches this with great interest, filing it away for later. She hasn’t the first clue how to respond - how do you thank someone for saving your life over text? - but she’s quickly distracted by the pictures from Franklin. Chop and Gus curled up on her bed, her actual bed, with the caption _ they did good_. A selfie containing the three men who’d just survived the unsurvivable, exhausted but alive. (_why does packie have an ice pack on his head? _ \- answer: _ he tripped n hurt himself_) Mixed in with all the good news is the weekly missed call from Pete. She swipes it all away and looks over at the pilot, who gives her a wink that says _ told you so _.

Trevor’s yes-man ends up being quite the character. No sooner have skids hit dirt on the crudely-fashioned helipad than the bespectacled, behatted man swarms them, lobbing question after question in a voice that’s somehow even more theatrical than Trevor’s. Trevor brushes off the interrogation in favor of helping Catherine join him down on the sand. Hand in hand, just briefly. It’s even better the third time. Not that he’s counting.

“And Trevor, gosh, you know, I don’t mean to pry, Trevor, but what’s, who’s-”

“Jesus H. Christ, Ronald, the rotors haven’t even stopped spinning!” Trevor snarls, and the heavily sweating man shrinks back but still follows at Trevor’s heels. “Give a guy a chance to get his land legs!”

“Y-yes, Trevor, absolutely, but-”

Trevor stops, his boots kicking up a cloud of dust, and holds an arm out toward Catherine. She’s struggling to keep up with his long strides, but she looks like this is all very entertaining.

“Ron, Cathy. Cathy, Ron.” 

As though that explains anything. But Ron seems satisfied. Trevor probably could have said she’d been beamed into his chopper by her alien mothership, and Ron would have been just as satisfied. Then Trevor’s off again, grumbling his way over to the dirtbike Ron must have dutifully brought, propped up on one wall of the big hangar. The other two hang back, studying each other. Ron gets this weird glint in his eye that Catherine doesn’t think she likes.

“Nice to meet you, _ Cathy._” He draws her name out in a way she _ definitely _ doesn’t like.

“He’s just being an ass. It’s Catherine.”

Trevor gives a loud _ a-HEM _ and pats the seat behind him. “Come on, Lucky, I got business to attend to that don’t involve frying like bacon out here.”

Catherine complies, straddling the scorching hot bike, but hesitates when Trevor raises his elbows for her to grab on. Trevor nudges her gently, reassuringly, and she wonders just when he started being so easy with her. She’d forgotten Ron was even there until he shuffles up, wringing his hands.

“Ah, um, T,” Ron verges on squeaking. “How, uh, how am I meant to get home?”

“Thumb it!” Trevor whoops, and Catherine is forced to sling her arms around him when he gives the Sanchez a mighty kick start that brings it roaring to life and sends them flying out onto the main road. 

“Turn around, I think I dropped my stomach back there,” she groans as she’s forced to duck under the descending railroad crossing bar. The only answer comes in the form of Trevor’s delighted cackling and she thinks she may have been safer in the crossfire.

\--

“Run me through this one more time, so I make sure I have _ every little detail _ fresh in my mind when I line you all up on the wall and cut off your _ fucking _ hands.”

Angie Pegorino isn’t a shouter. She prefers more of a ‘make ‘em lean in so you can bite their nose off’ approach to intimidation. Rafaele has to admit, it works. The line-up of her employees - the ones who are left, anyway - is just short of visibly quaking in their shoes. Raf clears his throat.

“I sent Vito an’ Sid to the address Dalton gave us. There’s no one there, so they wait.”

Angie paces up and down the line, passing her handgun from hand to hand, left to right and back again. The boys’ eyes are glued to it.

“Some _ moulignan _shows up, they figure he’s just casin’ the joint, so they stay in the car.”

“And then what?” The tiny redhead whirls and presses the gun against Marco’s temple. Marco, who’s slumped over and bound to a chair. Marco, who’s already got hot lead cooling off deep in his femur. Marco, who didn’t have anything to do with any of this. “_And then what?_” 

Raf tries to swallow as subtly as possible, hands clenched together. “And then Vito notices the dog-”

Angie pushes the barrel deeper into Marco’s temple, earning a groan from the semi-conscious man. Her own employee. She’s completely gone. Maybe it was the ketamine that did it, maybe it was the molly. Either way, Raf sees nothing close to human in her unfocused eyes. She probably doesn’t even know he’s standing here.

“The dog, what dog?”

“The, ah, the white shepard. Rowan’s white shepherd. Ex K-9 unit. The warden told us she used to-”

She’s back to pacing, this time circling her latest victim. Marco’s eyelids flutter. “I didn’t ask for its life story, now go _ on_.”

“Vito notices this moolie’s got Rowan’s dog wit’ ‘im, so he figures, ‘hey, this guy must have some idea where she is’. So they head over-”

Angie stops abruptly, as though being remotely controlled. She turns in Rafaele’s direction but doesn’t meet his eyes; she seems to mostly stare through the floor these days. “But did Vic _ know? _”

“Ah...know what?”

She gestures wildly. “How did he _ know? _ How did Vic _ know _ that it was this particular bitch’s dog?”

“I...I guess he didn’t. But, Mrs. Pegorino, a white shepard’s a pretty distinctive-”

“Shut up, shut the fuck _ up!_” she screams, fisting her small hands in her hair. The revolver clatters to the concrete, making the room jump. “What you’re telling me right now is that Vic got him and Sid and half my fucking crew, the crew I _ hand-picked_, clipped on the street like a common _ gang, _ all because it _ might _ have been the same dog?”

It's a waste of energy to try to tease her logic apart. Rafael tries to focus that energy on what or who he'll duck behind if she loses it and starts shooting.

“Tell me you at least know who killed my boys!” Angie wails this with such deep sorrow in her voice, stroking Marco’s hair - matted with his own blood - that Raf sees a hint of the mother she used to be and it makes him feel sick.

“I didn’t- I mean, I got there as soon as I could, me an’ Luca both, but by the time we got there, they was already- the black kid was makin’ tracks, an-”

The shot rings out and Marco sags to the floor soundlessly. Rafaele knows the sight of his blood seeping out to mix with the sawdust on the cold concrete floor will stay with him, like a cigarette burn directly to the brain. His hands are still tangled in his hair when Mrs. Pegorino approaches, stands on tiptoe to get up to his face.

“Keep disappointing me, Anthony,” she breathes, and Raf’s nose fills with a stench like sour milk. He was right - she doesn’t even know her own second-in-command. “Keep letting me down and you’ll see what happens. You’ll see what fucking happens. You think I don’t know where you and your little boyfriend shack up? In that nice little condo in Alderney, huh? With the green door and the two cats? Fuckin’ _ fenook_.” 

Rafaele wants to explode at her, scream into her wasted fucking face about how she’s killed more of her own goddamn soldiers than any imagined enemy, all over a girl who has nothing to do with her husband being dead. Angie spits on his shoe and Rafele can feel hatred rolling off of himself in hot waves as she steps back, but he can’t deny the fear. 

“If I don’t have Niko Bellic in this chair, if his blood is not _ dripping _ off my _ fingers _ from the hole I have dug them into to _ rip his fucking heart out_,” she warns, her words sharply enunciated, more comprehensible than Rafaele’s ever heard them, “I will see to it personally that both those cats get fed to my dogs, and that other fag gets fed to a wood chipper.”

After half a pack of cigarettes, Raf goes to the office in the corner of the warehouse, where he finds Angie passed out in a fitful sleep on the beat-up old leather couch and Phil standing over her, stroking her grey-streaked hair in the same way she’d stroked Marco’s right before shooting him in the base of the skull.

“The kid’ll live,” Rafaele says, as if Phil gives two shits. “Some-fucking-how.”

As predicted, Phil goes right on petting her with this bullshit sympathetic look like she’s just a troublesome goddamn housecat. 

“You gotta get a handle on her, Phil, or someone else will.”

The aging man peers into Rafaele’s face. “Is that right?”

Raf tries not to let his expression reflect that he’s realizing he may have just sealed his own fate. But there’s no threat in those tired eyes.

“She’s- _ was _ my boss’s wife,” Phil says quietly after a long time, the voice of a man who’s long since resigned himself. “I gotta follow her just like I’d follow him. You know that.”

Raf grits his teeth against the building rage, moves to the door before it explodes out of him. 

“There ain’t no heaven, Phil,” he spits before turning to leave. “And if there is, Jimmy fucking Pegorino ain’t up there lookin’ down on you.”

\--

Trevor’s tiny, fenced-in yard, more akin to a mad scientist’s lab, was nothing compared to his trailer.

Among the used-up whippits, half-empty pizza boxes, and beer bottles in various states of wholeness is evidence of the bachelor pad to end all bachelor pads. They stand in the doorway that Trevor just kicked in, his arms thrust out. 

“Welcome, welcome, welcome to Chateauuu Phillips! That’s where you’ll be.” He points to the sunken couch, looking like it would be of great interest to the CDC, illuminated by the flickering neon Pißwasser sign. Catherine controls her facial expression with great effort. Various critters skitter away from Trevor’s searching hands when he starts ripping apart piles of filthy clothes. “There’s gotta be an extra blanket around here _ some _where.”

He stops digging and takes in a deep breath, somehow not gagging it back out, hands on his hips. “Hoooo _ boy_, I tell ya, Cathy, you are gonna _ love _ it out here. A man can really be ‘imself in the desert, y’know?”

Trevor doesn’t see her infamous nose-crinkle of disdain at the loathsome nickname; he’s too busy rubbing his hands together like the aforementioned mad scientist. “Trevor Philips Industries has gone too long without her loving captain at the helm so now, if you’ll excuse me, I got a few errands to run.”

“I’m coming with you,” Catherine says suddenly, breaking into his monologue. Her stance, feet planted firmly apart, tells Trevor that she’s in another one of her stubborn moods.

“Glad to see you’re already takin’ an interest in old Uncle T’s operation,” he answers, giving a little chuckle of disbelief, “but, uh, _ no_, and I cannot stress this enough, you’re not.”

“You can either take me with you, or you can explain to Michael why I was murdered by a trucker and left in a ditch when I tried to hitchhike back to Los Santos.”

Trevor can’t help it. He likes her grit. Probably always has, even back when it annoyed the piss out of him. She’s lucky that she’s easy on the eyes.

“Alright, you got me.” He throws up his hands in surrender. “You better hope you live up to your name, though, Lucky. Anyone starts shootin’, you keep your head down.”

“Well, uh, well now, hey-”

Trevor slings an arm around her shoulders, though he has to stoop rather comically to do so, a greasy smile stretching his cheeks. “Ohhhh, no,” he purrs, steering her out into sunlight that’s gotten at least ten degrees hotter since they got here. “I quite insist! See, I been lookin’ someone with a brain that meth and clown rap ain’t melted to mush to help me run my little..._ operation._”

“Too bad, really,” Catherine says with a voice that tries its best to come across as tough, but Trevor sees right through it with a grin. “I’m the biggest crystal-smoking juggalo in all of San Andreas. The world, maybe.”

She may be a fit contender against Trevor’s words, but she’s no match for his muscles. He hoists her quite easily over one shoulder, even with her legs kicking and her arms flailing, and deposits her on the back of the bike, laughing all the while.

Within the hour, they’ve traded the Sanchez for a Mule that’s loaded down with booze, twisting its way down Raton Canyon. Catherine’s got the window down, resting her head on her crossed arms while the breeze whips the scent of sun-baked pine and earth through the truck. Trevor’s torn between navigating the rocky hills and examining her daydreamy, half-lidded smile, one that that grows wider when he points out a herd of deer or a circling falcon. 

She doesn’t complain about how the cab of the truck is shaking fit to fall apart with his thrashing music, even singing along when she knows the words. Doesn’t shriek for him to be more careful around the sharper turns. Doesn’t bat an eye when he tells her they’re headed to one of two stripclubs that he owns. There’s something about being out here, with no one around for miles, that really opens people up, puts them in touch with themselves. And there is something about _ her_, lots of somethings, that make Trevor want to daydream, too.

\--

It’s approaching midnight when they crest one of the countless ridges of the San Chianskis. Catherine hops off the bike, still clutching the case of Blarney’s Stout Trevor had stowed away from their Hen House venture. “_Oirish_, like you,” he’d very wittily said. The beers aren’t cold anymore, but they’ll do.

“Don’t drink too many of these,” she admonishes as they plop down in the brambles. “I already fear for my life on the back of that thing.”

Trevor grabs two bottles from the box and hands her one. “I stopped to get you a helmet and you _ still _ bitch at me to slow down. There’s no winning with you.”

The view up here is absolutely stunning. The perfect place to bring a girl of questionable judgment, Trevor thinks. Any other girl with a pipe and a blanket in the back of his Bodhi would be the ticket to cloud nine. Cloud four, at least. For now, though, he’s content with this girl and some beer and a dirtbike. 

The ocean crashes relentlessly behind them and the ghostly white windmills of the wind farm creak in the breeze below, life going on as normal under the watchful eye of the most stars that Catherine’s seen since she was a kid. Across the Olympic Freeway, that goofy purple dinosaur surveys its greasy-spoon kingdom.

Catherine’s heart feels sore somehow, hanging heavy in her chest. It was great that Michael _ says _ they’re all fine, but what does that mean, exactly? What now? Then, as she's just starting to notice his uncanny knack for it, Trevor has distracted her, pulled her out of the noise of her own head. He’s rustling around in his pocket when she glumly observes that she doesn’t have anything to open her beer with. A sly grin lights up his face as he holds up the crisp green bill he just fished from his wallet.

“Luckily, bottle openers only cost-” 

Trevor folds the bill and rolls it up tight with well-practiced fingers, then folds it again. He pokes his tongue out a little as he pushes the bent-up note up under the cap, popping it off with a grunt.

“-a dollar!”

Catherine squeals and applauds as he passes her the overflowing bottle, sucking up the foam while Trevor does the same trick on his. He downs half of it in one impressive gulp and lets out an excessive _ ahhh _that makes her giggle. He doesn’t know what it is, but outside the confines of LS, he feels like his words come easier, flow freer, like all this open air makes them want to come out all on their own.

“See? That wasn’t so bad for your first day in the care of yours truly.”

They clink bottles. Trevor doesn’t see her smile around the lip of her beer as she watches him drain his and toss it with a belch. Nor does he see her eyes roving over him when he stretches himself out like a beachgoer despite the lack of towel or any sand. Lingering on the spot between his chest and the crook of his arm while she chews her lip.

“Not bad at all.”

\--

Michael’s settling down on the couch in front of an old movie, icing his bruised knee, right when the alarm for the front door starts wailing.

“_Goddamn, motherfucking…_” He hisses a string of obscenities while tossing the throw pillows around in search of the Hawk & Little he keeps stashed under one of the cushions. Head pounding with ‘yay we’re alive’ tequila shots, Michael dashes to the foyer. And stops.

“_Amanda?_”

His maybe-maybe not ex-wife is clinging to the door handle with one hand and covering her ear with the other. Her glare is ice-cold and very familiar.

“You changed the code?” she shouts. Michael sighs and punches in the numbers, laying the revolver on the hall table. That horrible high-pitched blaring still echoes off the high walls.

“Baby, if you saw the kinda night I just had, the kinda _ weeks _ I just had-”

“Don’t you _ ‘baby’ _ me, Michael,” Amanda snaps, smoothing her hair. He shuts up with a snap. She’s on him in a heartbeat, freshly manicured fingernail in his face. “Is that what you call _ her? _”

Michael blinks. “‘Her’ who?”

Amanda throws up her hands with a laugh of disbelief. “‘Her who’!” she mocks. “I could have fucking guessed there’d be too many to- Ohhh, I could’ve put _ money _ on it!”

“Mandy, baby, _ please_,” Michael starts, but Amanda doesn’t let him get very far. Both her rings come flying at his face. He dodges one but the other dings him right between the eyes.

“Fuck you, Michael!” comes her retreating cry. Before she slams the car door, she leans out and shouts, “My tennis skirt looked awful on her, just by the fucking way!”

Michael rubs his forehead as Amanda rips up the driveway, bending the front gate out of shape with her fender before screeching off down West Eclipse Boulevard to a chorus of yapping dogs and honking cars. 

It’s only when he’s starting to get comfortable on the couch again, a second ice pack pressed to his brow, that it finally dawns on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took a month, but it's here! 
> 
> _Warning_, I'll be talking about the death of a pet for a bit. One of my dear kitties - my Siamese, Maya - was diagnosed with leukemia right around Thanksgiving, so it's been a month-long emotional rollercoaster of seeing her respond to treatment, then get worse, then recover, etc. I didn't have much motivation to write as a result. Unfortunately, she passed just yesterday. I miss her terribly, even though she was an asshole. She helped me get through some very rough spots this summer. Her laying on my lap watching me play and fall in love with GTA V will always be a fond memory. ❤️ 
> 
> Sorry to be such a downer! Please keep the lovely comments coming! It's so amazing to log in and see my inbox full of such kind, inspiring words ❤️ (*•̀ᴗ•́*)و ̑̑
> 
> Thanks as always for your time and for helping me keep this awesome fandom alive!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so touched by all the support you all have given me. It has honestly made the pain of losing a pet easier to deal with, and that's invaluable to me. I wish I could hug each and every one of my fabulous readers. ❤️

Trevor knows that smell. 

It’s supposed to be a little slice of American heaven to wake up to bacon and eggs at the crack of noon on a Saturday (where in the hell did Catherine even find that kind of stuff?). For Trevor, it just brings the snarling face of his mother to mind with a nauseating speed that yanks him out of bed, head spinning, and forces him stumbling into the living room.

“Are you making eggs?”

Catherine turns from the stove with a smile but apparently rethinks it immediately, and Trevor realizes he’s in just his briefs. Anyone else, literally anyone, and he knows he would have just shrugged it off, probably enjoying the awkwardness. Is this what shame feels like? Has he finally achieved that “common decency” that Michael’s always nagging him about? He’s clumsily kicking into his sweatpants when she calls, “Yeah, I asked Wade to bring some from 24/7. He grabbed bacon too, bless him. I thought we could all-”

Trevor hasn’t said anything, but something about his face must have tipped her off.

“Oh, shit, you don’t like eggs, huh?” With a simple shake of his head, Catherine shuts the whole operation down, flicking off burners, while Trevor watches curiously from his bedroom doorway. Her hand flies up to cover her mouth. “Oh man, you aren’t- you aren’t allergic, are you? Ugh, I knew I should’ve-”

“Don’t worry about it so much. Jesus.” 

He crosses to the tiny linoleum island that makes up the kitchen and just then notices the distinct lack of dirty plate towers and patches of mystery mush. He’d forgotten the counters had been white at some point. The sagging cabinet doors have even been screwed back into place.

“I’m sorry, I, I clean when I’m, you know,” Catherine stumbles, gesticulating nervously to the nigh-spotless sink. “Stressed out.”

“Huh,” is all Trevor says. He gets caught on what she’s wearing - denim cutoffs and that white t-shirt from Michael’s house. What would he normally be doing right now, if he wasn’t busy trying to keep his mind off of the fact that this is his first time seeing her thighs? Oh, right, coffee. But his overloaded brain is stumped for what to do next when he finds that the coffee maker’s already got grounds in it.

“Oh, shit, I forgot to start that.” Catherine nudges Trevor out of the way and presses the button, starting the ancient machine to bustling and brewing. The egg smell is swallowed up by the bitter nip of coffee almost instantly. Crazy how much his mood improves with just the flick of that little red switch.

“I coulda done that,” he smirks, clearly finding this particular set of Catherine’s behaviors amusing. Also amusing is the fact that the pinup girl tattoos covering her left leg get racier the further up they are. Some situated above her knee even have their tits out. 

“Yeah, well, you’re the one with a complete stranger invading your personal space,” Catherine explains, now busying herself with drying dishes that already look plenty dry. Since when did Trevor have a cloth clean enough for that, much less a dish rack? “I figured making breakfast was the least I could do. But then I messed that up, so…”

“You didn’t mess anything up,” Trevor counters. “And stop abasing yourself, jesus, you’re making me feel like a bully over here.”

“S-,” she starts, then mimics zipping her lips. Trevor chuckles and goes to wait for the coffee at the table, which he notices is also devoid of its usual decor of empty bottles and takeout boxes. 

“You been busy,” he observes, sinking into a chair and picking up one of the car magazines that survived the great purge, flipping through it aimlessly. “Looks almost like it did when I bought the place.”

“Like I said, cleaning is how I cope. There’s still a lot to do, but just picking up the garbage did wonders.” Catherine sounds more confident now, and Trevor finds that he likes it. Yeah, big fucking surprise. “So what should I make then, if you don’t like eggs? I mean, me and Wade will eat them, but you don’t have stuff to make anything else. Nothing that isn’t expired, anyway.”

Trevor decides right then, taking in the way her freckles have come out in the desert sun, especially along her shoulders, that Wade will absolutely not be having a part in this equation. He takes her instead to a little diner off the highway - one of the few eating establishments that hasn't banned him for life. He must be getting soft in his old age.

“There’s a reason, you know. That I don’t like eggs.”

Catherine looks up from aimlessly pushing a bite of pancakes around in the frankly absurd pool of syrup they’re drowning in. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Trevor replies, resisting the urge to shift awkwardly in the uncomfortable plastic booth. “It’s, uh. It’s because of my mom.”

He may as well have said that he knows the secret to immortality, because Catherine’s plate is pushed off to the side and she’s practically halfway across the table in a second, resting on her elbows. He summons all his newfound propriety and doesn’t look down her shirt. 

“Yeah?” Catherine presses.

Trevor has to look away from a gaze that has the intensity of an x-ray. He settles for staring into his nearly-empty coffee mug. “She used to force me to eat them.”

Catherine keeps on peering at him, and he swears she’s gotten closer.

“Sometimes it was all we had to eat, you know, either because we were too broke or she was too high to drive to the store.” Trevor scratches his chin thoughtfully. “And, I dunno, there’s just something about them. The texture, I guess. But if I hesitated for even just a second, it would start these big blow-ups.”

Catherine cocks her head. “Like how?”

Trevor puts on his imitation of his mother’s high-pitched screeching, and Catherine realizes why it is that he’s so good at British accents. “_‘I work my ass off to put food on this table just for you to turn up your nose at it, you ungrateful little bastard’_, yadda yadda.” He laughs before he can stop himself, realizing too late that Catherine will probably think that’s weird of him. “And, you know, at that age it doesn’t occur to you that, ‘hey, it might be a little weird that my mom’s beating me up because I don’t want breakfast’.” 

“So she’d hit you just because you didn’t like eggs?”

“Ah-huh,” he nods matter-of-factly. “When I was still small, she’d even force-feed ‘em to me. Even if it made me late for school.” 

And instead of the anticipated platitudes, Catherine sits back and snorts, “Good to know she had her priorities straight.”

Trevor does his best to focus his attention on the heat of the mug against his palms, rolling it between them idly. “Hey, well, if that was the worst thing that happened that day, I went to bed thanking my lucky stars.”

Catherine rests her chin in her hand after an incredulous shake of her head, and Trevor tries not to see her dark waves brush along her shoulders. “God, what is it with moms and freakish rules about eating? If I didn’t feel like getting up for mass, my mom wouldn’t let me eat anything for the rest of the day. _ Anything. _ Not even a saltine cracker. Not even if my tennis team got back late from a match the night before and I’d gotten, like, three hours of sleep.” She looks up at Trevor and he realizes how he’s the one leaning forward now. It doesn’t seem to bother her. “And she’d always say some shit like, ‘well you could use the break from eating anyway, you’re getting fat again’. It was fucking nuts. I’m lucky I don’t have some kind of complex.”

Trevor cuts himself a huge bite of the tower of pancakes she wasn’t able to finish and asks around it, “So it wasn’t daddy to the rescue for you either, huh?”

“Hell no,” Catherine laughs. “He’s been in prison since I was seven. That’s when my mom _ really _ stepped up the crazy. Even when he _ was _ around, he hit me, too. Sometimes for no reason.”

“Well now, that explains a lot,” Trevor croons from behind his mug, gesturing vaguely at her being just about completely covered in tattoos. “I’m surprised you ain’t got them giant holes in your earlobes yet. That’s always a dead giveaway.”

“Piercings aren’t really my thing.” She crinkles her nose at him, then laughs, sweet and bubbly as champagne. “You dick.”

Trevor declines when the young waitress goes to give him his hundredth refill of coffee and he sees the way her eyes shift between him and Catherine, a smile curling her lips that’s a little too wise for Trevor’s comfort. Thankfully, Catherine’s spaced out, gazing outside, but she comes back down to earth when she sees the check being placed next to Trevor’s cup. She pats the pockets of her shorts frantically while Trevor digs the wad of cash from his wallet.

“Ah, shit,” she laments with a scowl. “My wallet’s still in my purse back at Michael’s. I didn’t think to grab it when we left.”

Trevor’s already standing, shrugging into his denim jacket. “I don’t mind having you owe me a favor, sweet pea.”

“Yeah, but I got a shitload of food and all you got was coffee.” Catherine stands too, and Trevor sees the eyes of just about every male in the establishment lock onto her, then size him up. He wonders how it must feel to know that every part of your body is constantly under everyone’s microscope. The ever-present urge to pull her close is magnified. “I’ll pay you back.”

“Tell you what. If this Bellic guy doesn’t hurry up and get his shit together, then you’ll pay me back for the-” he checks the receipt “-ten dollars. Because I’m gonna need it if I don’t get paid for this job. Deal?”

Trevor doesn’t wait for her answer, just drops a crumpled ball of notes that rivals the GDP of a small country on the table and makes for the parking lot, where Ron’s borrowed car waits. _ Gotta get the two of us back on a bike_, he thinks as she slides into the passenger seat and smiles up at him, closer than ever before and not nearly close enough.

“Catherine,” Trevor says, and his voice drops to a low, intimate rumble as both hands grip the steering wheel. She’s never heard him speak this way and that fiercely hooks her attention. “_ Any _ time _ any _one ever hit you, it was for no reason, do you understand me?”

With tears in her eyes, she does.

\--

“Mike, dog, it’s been great seein’ you and all, but uh…”

Franklin trails off, wondering whether “I told you this morning that I have a date tonight and I hoped you would leave then so go the hell home” is too harsh. Michael saves him the trouble.

“I know, kid,” he sighs. He stands with a grunt and some effort from the spot he’s been occupying since this morning, facedown on Franklin’s couch. They, along with Lamar and Packie, had spent the night taking in drinks and girls and more drinks. Franklin had never seen Michael get so utterly shit-faced. 

Michael was laying on the couch, snoring mightily, when Franklin took Gus and Chop out for their morning run. He offered Michael breakfast, lunch, _ and _ dinner, all of which the older man refused, content to melt into the cushions while rerun after rerun blared from the massive TV. Even now, he’s a little wobbly, hair mussed, suit crumpled. 

“You ain’t gotta sugar coat it. I’m a pathetic fuckin’ mess and I shoulda fucked off hours ago.” Michael pauses, tasting his own breath, and cringes. “Christ, more like I never shoulda gone out in the first place.”

Franklin shakes his head slowly, but he doubts it’s very convincing. “Nah, man, I ain’t say that.”

“Eh, you don’t have to.” Michael pats his pockets for his keys, then remembers Franklin picked him up last night. In fact, that’s just about the last thing he remembers with any clarity.

“You alright, dude? Need me to drop you off on my way?”

Michael waves the offer away, pulling out his phone. “Nah, I’m fine with a cab. You been lookin’ after me too long.”

“At least let me call one of my guys. On the house.”

“...yeah. Yeah, alright.”

Michael helps get the dogs outside and fed while they wait for the car, and Franklin notices that he doesn’t seem to be perking up much, even after a cup of coffee and some toast.

“You miss her that much, huh?” Franklin asks with a wry smile.

Michael stares through the ground as he says, no, recites, “Well, yeah, I mean, she drives me absolutely nuts, but she _ is _ the mother of my children, so.”

Franklin shakes his head, and Michael sees his expression turn almost pitying. “I meant Catherine.”

“That ain’t it at all,” Michael rebuffs a little too quickly. He stoops to pat Chop’s bulky head and stays there even after the dog bounds off to catch up with Gus, who’s just gone whirling by, chasing his tail. “Gus’s really been givin’ him a workout, huh?”

“I don’t blame you, dog,” Franklin goes on, fondly watching the two overgrown puppies tumble around in the grass. “She’s like, one hundred percent your type, right? I mean, with the whole retro look and the old movies n’ shit.”

Michael straightens, as stiff as someone who’s been laying in the same position all day would be. He gives Franklin a stern look when he says, “I’m tellin’ you, Frank, it ain’t like that. Sure, it was nice havin’ someone around who knew Loretta Young from Hedy Lamarr, but I’m happy to finally be able to have enough hot water to take a shower that lasts longer than three minutes.”

“Come on, that ain’t it, though, is it.” More an observation than a question. Michael grinds his teeth for a moment, looking up at the cheshire-grin sliver of moon hanging over them.

“I’m worried about her,” he finally admits. “Alone with _ Trevor _ of all goddamn people, stuck in the ass-end of nowhere. I mean, we did what we had to do, but Christ...I’m not sure she’s any better off now than she would be with the mafia.”

Franklin joins him in taking in the pleasant sight of the climbing moon, alone in the sky since the city lights blot out all the stars. “Yeah, man. I know what you mean.” He starts for the stairs, and Michael follows, hands in his pockets. “But, y’know, I think you should give T a little more credit. He ain’t gonna hurt a woman. He’s got _ some _ kinda morals.”

Michael scoffs. “That’s like sayin’ we shouldn’t be so hard on Hitler because he brought unemployment down.” 

“Maybe,” Franklin laughs.

“And besides, it ain’t just him I’m worried about. We don’t know what the Pegorinos know and what they don’t know. If they found her house, what’s stoppin’ ‘em from trackin’ ‘er out there? She may not have her wallet, but she’s got her phone.”

“You heard what Lester said. They probably got to somebody who knows her,” Franklin tries to reassure him, wondering why that task falls on him so often. “And ain’t nobody in that town gonna give Trevor up for nothin’. They all terrified of him.” 

Franklin heads in and locks the sliding door behind them just as a horn sounds outside. He turns to Michael and stops them in their tracks before they reach the front door. His tone is serious.

“Look. Mike. We got all the guys who showed up at her house. Lester says they ain’t got much more dudes than that, and they obviously ain’t got nobody like Lester.” Franklin steps outside and gives the driver a wave. “After takin’ a hit like that, they probably gonna hafta go back to Liberty an’ rethink they whole operation.” 

Michael trails along behind him, thinking, and slumps into the taxi’s backseat as Franklin instructs the driver. 

“Yeah, you’re right,” Michael relents, rubbing a palm down his face. Franklin closes Michael’s door and leans down to the window. “Thanks, Frank. For, uh, everything.”

“Yeah. And Michael?”

“Yeah, kid?”

“Take a shower before you do anything else, dog, I’m serious.”

“...thanks, kid.”

\--

The third best thing about living in the desert, Catherine decides, is that there are no mosquitoes.

On a day like this - cloudless cornflower sky, every shade of every color over-saturated by the harsh sun - she can easily call to mind those days when she lived in a desert not too different from the Senora, in a trailer not too different from Trevor’s. Long days in the endless summer that her life became after she and her mother left Angel Pine and headed north for a dusty, rusty little trailer park in Bone County. 

Catherine remembers looking out her new bedroom window at the flickering neon of the alien-themed bar (as many businesses were out there - a result of being so close to a certain government facility) across the desolate highway. She remembers thinking that a bar positioned that close would have been a sign of bad times to come if her father hadn’t been shipped off to the state pen just a few weeks prior. Looking for bright sides in that isolated corner of the county, a preteen Catherine could only seem to find one; unlike in Angel Pine, at the very least, she didn’t have to stop playing and come in right at sunset because the mosquitoes were eating her alive.

Things haven’t changed much in that regard. Even though the heat is suffocating, even though she’s technically on the run, even though she misses her dog and starts a big new job soon and has to figure out how the hell she’s going to be able to move house… Even with all of that hanging over her head, at least there are no mosquitoes.

Right now, she’s out with Trevor, as she often is these days, preferring his company over the cramped confines of the ammonia-scented metal hotbox he calls home. It probably isn’t the safest thing, Trevor letting her tag along on his seemingly endless errands. It probably isn’t the best idea, following in Trevor’s shadow often enough that half of Sandy Shores’ colorful residents know her by name. But there’s something about small-town desert life that holds a touch of the surreal for her. Something that brings back memories of homemade lemonade and three fuzzy television channels. They’re in a bubble out here. Nothing can get her. 

Given her druthers, of course, she’d be planted firmly on her own couch in her own (clean, air-conditioned) house, watching something at least forty years old with Gus curled up and snoring beside her. If this is the way things have to be, though, she’s surprised to find she doesn’t mind watching something else that’s at least forty years old, covered in grease, fixing his propeller plane. She doesn’t even mind that he’s spent the whole time teasing her. He’s been doing that a lot the last few days.

“How’s it feel, bein’ a caviar girl in a corndog town?”

“You and Michael both with this- look, I lived in a trailer park outside Las Venturas for almost ten years. The only reason we moved back to Los Santos was because there’s no all-girls Catholic schools in the desert.” 

Catherine gives as good as she gets in the banter game.

“Does your moonlighting as a mechanic have anything to do with this big trip to Mexico?”

“Classified.”

“Ooo, _ why? _ Doing something naughty?”

“How do you even know about that?” He bites his tongue to keep from threatening to do something naughty to _ her _ if she doesn’t drop it.

“Ron told me. And Chef. And Melvin from Ammu-Nation. And-”

“Alright, al_ right. _ Yeesh, people just become open fuckin’ books for you, huh? _ Va savoir pourqoi... _”

“Can I-”

“No, you can’t fuckin’ come.”

She goes up into the air-conditioned control tower when the heat makes her head swimmy, but otherwise, Catherine is inside the hangar, planted in a derelict plastic folding chair she dug up from one of the dilapidated sheds that serve as the airfield’s storage, content to chug a soda she bugged Trevor into getting her from the nearby gas station while she soaks up his enthusiastic ramblings about the finer points of turboprop versus open rotor.

Trevor’s usually a pretty wide-open guy, but this, this is different. This is passion, and it’s captivating.

“...the air flows into the compressor through the intake, then…?”

“Then the fuel goes in and it all gets combusted.”

“That was an easy one. What happens to the combusted stuff?”

“Oh! It goes to the propeller!”

“Ah ah ah, before that.”

“Oh, the uhhh, the uhhh...reduction gearing!”

“Atta girl,” Trevor affirms through a grin, and Catherine feels warmth creeping up her neck as she claps gleefully for herself. “How’s it feel to be a student again?”

Catherine _ ughhh_s and drops her forehead to her knees. “I wouldn’t go back to it for anything. Not even if someone offered to pay for it.” Then she lifts her head to look at him. “You ever thought about teaching anyone to fly?”

Trevor stands up from where he was hunched over a beat-up old toolbox, hissing when his knees pop audibly. Catherine gestures to his cheek by pointing to her own and he raises his shirt, so filthy that she can’t tell what color it’s supposed to be, to wipe the soot off his face. This action reveals two things: one, that Trevor has a huge FUCK COPS tattoo above his navel and two, that Trevor is..._ fit _. 

Not buff, like Franklin, but a hint of toned abs presses very nicely against the taut skin under his shirt as he lifts it. Catherine isn’t particularly surprised at either of these facts, the tattoo or the abs; both of them are probably the result of a lifetime spent running from said cops. What does surprise her is how something coils up tight and hot in her belly at the sight of the dark hair that’s gathered at the base of his stomach, disappearing into the waistband of his jeans.

She remembers her question with some effort. “Well, have you? Thought about it?” 

Trevor waves it away. “Nah. Gotta be all certified ‘n shit.” Then he hesitates, and Catherine can see that there’s something lingering on the tip of his tongue. 

“And?” she presses, sensing there’s more. It’s in the way said tongue bothers the corner of Trevor’s scarred-up mouth. He evaluates her out of the corner of his eye. 

“And I ain’t allowed to fly,” is the matter-of-fact explanation he settles on. He doesn’t take advantage of the resulting silence to elaborate, instead turning back to tinkering. 

“That doesn’t seem to stop you,” Catherine observes.

Trevor chuckles, probably at the idea of ever being deterred by _ anything _ just because he isn’t allowed to do it. Catherine weighs the benefit of convincing Trevor to be vulnerable against the odds that she’ll piss him off. The odds are bad, but high risk, high reward. 

“I’m probably gonna regret asking this, but why can’t you?”

Trevor sets his wrench on the wing and leans against it, smudging even more gunk on his shirt by crossing his arms. His smile is crooked. “I’ll make you a deal, Lucky, okay?”

“Okay,” Catherine agrees. She screws the lid back on her soda and eyes him expectantly.

“You give me the full story with you and the Polack - the abridged version, mind you - and I’ll tell you why it is technically illegal for me to pilot an aircraft.”

Trevor snorts when she recoils, glaring up at him like a petulant child. 

“You guys are awfully interested in me and Niko. I didn’t expect three felons to so closely resemble a sewing circle.”

Trevor scowls. “I’m not int-”

“Also, he’s _ Serbian_, not Polish.” 

“Whatever. Quit deflecting.” He scratches his nose, leaving another smudge that Catherine decides she won’t tell him about. Serves him right. “You’re askin’ for a one-way ticket to that ditch on the side of the road you were whinin’ about.”

“Fine,” Catherine huffs. “But this will be the third time I’ve told this story, so you better listen close.”

As with Michael and Franklin before him, she tells Trevor everything. Well, almost everything. She leaves out the part about the sleepless nights she spent worrying herself sick over a man who just couldn’t seem to escape from the sins for which he thought he’d long atoned. She leaves out the part where she can’t smell a leather jacket without thinking about the night she toured Star Junction on the back of Niko’s motorcycle, face buried in his back and arms much tighter around his chest than necessary. She leaves out the part about him never showing the slightest interest while she hoped and ached and came away hurt. 

And Trevor finds that it freaks him right the hell out, the misty, distant look in her eyes as she recounts years of her life, formative years, where this Bellic guy was instrumental. That night at Franklin's, when Trevor had nearly destroyed what little bond they’d made, Catherine had insisted that she wasn’t tied down by Niko anymore. But now...now, he’s not sure if it's that simple.

_ Oh yeah? And what were you gonna do even if it was? Nothing, because you’re a fucking coward. _

“Your turn,” she grins, pulling him out of that scary, perplexing place. “Spill it.”

“Not a chance,” Trevor grins right back. He smears a stripe of grease on her nose, then bolts for the airstrip, and peals of raspy laughter ring up to the rafters as Catherine darts after him.

\--

Luca and Rafaele haven’t done this in a good while. It’s a shit bar with shit beer, but it’s enough to give Raf a break from the pressure-cooker that is working for Angie Pegorino, and he couldn’t be happier for it.

“So Marco’s headin’ back to Liberty, huh?” Luca asks, swirling his third beer around. Raf watches the foam cling to the sides of the glass but has to stop when its trickling starts to make him think of the thick way Marco’s blood came seeping out of his neck.

“Raf?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, Phil somehow got ‘im airlifted to Portola Trinity for surgery, no questions asked. They’re gonna transport ‘im to LC for physical therapy. He, uh…” Raf pauses, then takes a long drag of Pißwasser, grimacing. “Marco probably won’t be walkin’ again.”

“_ Madone _ ,” Luca sighs, lighting a cigarette. Rafaele isn’t at all surprised when no one stops him, even though they’re sitting directly beneath a ‘No Smoking’ sign. “When are these _ gavones _ gonna learn, huh?”

Raf blinks. “What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

“I’m talkin’ about how these newbies, these mooks they just brought in off the streets...they dunno how it works. What the boss says, goes. Period.” Luca slaps his hand down on the bartop with finality. He sees his superior staring at him and rolls his eyes. “Oh, c’mon, Raf, don’t look at me like that. You know how it works. Buncha guys get clipped, operation gets ruined. Marco had to take the fall. Sure as hell wasn’t gonna be you or me.”

Rafaele goes rigid, and Luca leans away on instinct. “Marco didn’t have one goddamn thing to do with it,” Raf mutters, fingers turning white with how hard he’s gripping his glass. “You ‘n me are supposed to be the ones who shoulder the blame, not the little guys. It should be _ you _ or _ me _ stuck in that wheelchair.”

Luca is standing now, and his tone borders on dangerous when he snaps, “Well I didn’t see you steppin’ in to take the fuckin’ bullet for ‘im, Raf.”

“And correct me if I’m wrong, but _ you _ were the one in charge-a that sting,” Rafaele goes on, pent-up tension flowing from him with words that get louder and sharper, “And where were you, huh? Gettin’ your johnny sucked by some coked-up whore at that Unicorn joint while Vito an’ Sid was gettin’ turned into swiss cheese by some fuckin’ gangbanger an’ his homies. That’s not how bein’ _ capitano _ works, Luc.”

“The buck don’t stop here, my friend, not by a long fuckin’ shot.” Luca’s growl is quiet and his grin fierce. It makes Raf want to bust every one of those teeth out of his stupid fucking head. “Aren’t you one of them real old-school guys? The shit that falls on me falls _ double _ on you. _ That’s _ how bein’ _ capo _ works.”

Rafaele’s finger is in his underling’s face, and he sees the urge to break it right off burning in the young man’s eyes. “Maybe it ain’t very ‘old-school’ of me, but there comes a time when you gotta choose sides. I choose not to be on the side that puts innocent kids in nursin’ homes.”

“Then you can buy yourself a plane ticket right next to that cripple, ya fuckin’ delusional piece of shit. ‘Innocent’ - gimme a fuckin’ break, Raf. Ain’t none of us been innocent since the day we come cryin’ outta the womb.” Luca’s brows go high, and he’s much closer to the _ capo _ than he was before. “But I tell ya this much. When Mrs. P gives me the word to come rub you an’ your fudge-packin’ boyfriend out, I’ll do it wit’ a fuckin’ smile on my face.”

The younger man slaps Rafaele’s hand out of the way and stalks off for the exit, Los Santos sunshine blasting in through the door he kicks open. 

Raf looks around to confirm that they’re the only patrons before he digs a crisp stack of hundreds from his sleek leather wallet and tosses them on the bartop. He shoots the bartender a meaningful look. “You didn’t hear nothin’, so don’t _ say _ nothin’.”

The man behind the counter watches them storm out like they’re being pushed by gusts in a whirlwind while he counts the bills. “Don’t you worry, pal. I’ve never heard a thing.”

\--

The second best thing about living in the desert, Catherine decides, is that time just works differently out here. 

She’s lived in the city, two of the biggest cities, for so long, chasing and planning and doing, that she’d utterly forgotten the simple pleasure of taking her time. Trevor left the day before yesterday to pick up his truck from Michael’s, and in her time alone, Catherine has rediscovered the lazy sort of happiness to be found in sitting on the porch, sipping iced tea and waving at passersby while the laundry dries. She’d forgotten what it was like to just exist.

Trevor’s been sending Wade to keep watch in his stead. It’s laughable to think that he’d be of any use against even the most pathetic Pegorino specimen, bless him. Michael and/or Niko would probably be incensed to know that her safety is being entrusted to the dreadlocked space case. Just now, he’s passed out at Trevor’s kitchen table, high as a kite, which is where he usually ends up if he shows up at all. But it doesn’t bother Catherine one bit. This is a safe place, she’s sure of it. Desert magic, baby.

There’s that special kind of sandy breeze that only makes you hotter, sending tumbleweeds and trash scurrying up the dirt road, swiftly drying the unbelievable amount of clothes Catherine recovered from just about every nook and cranny of the trailer. Trevor’s yard is a maze of rainbow colors, T-shirts in Dusche gold and Zancudo green, all flapping cheerfully like circus banners on the makeshift clothesline she MacGuyver’d out of some old fishing line and a couple of those clips people use to keep bags of chips from going stale. The briefs and panties had been unceremoniously tossed into bags and put aside - she’d worn double gloves for those. No amount of gloves on earth would make her feel safe cleaning out Trevor’s bedroom, so that particular door has stayed closed. 

Catherine checks her little gold watch. In this heat, dry as it is, his wash will be ready to take in in no time. Then she can get started on the…

There’s a girl standing in Trevor’s yard. 

Catherine has watched countless strangers stroll or drive by, but this one is just...standing there, staring at the hanging clothes as though they hold all the wonder of a kaleidoscope. The gaunt cheeks and sunken eyes are textbook signs of someone deep in the throes of addiction. Catherine comes to the edge of the porch steps, apprehension slipping up the backs of her legs and gripping at her spine.

“Can I help you?”

“Oh, hi,” the girl drawls, as if Catherine just woke her from a deep sleep. Her unfocused eyes, red-ringed and murky like Wade’s, widen with something approaching recognition. “Oh, you’re that girl he’s been co-...co-hab...livin’ with. He kick you out or something?”

The girl sniffs, hard, and wipes at her nose with her filthy shirt - she must be absolutely roasting in the thing, black and long-sleeved as it is. There’s some kind of symbol on the front, an eagle that Catherine has seen a couple of places around town. Her brassy blonde hair is rooted in brown, all of it just as dirty as her pallid, blemished face. When she smiles weakly up at Catherine, the teeth she has left are well on their way out. Catherine imagines it’s what looking into the face of certain death might feel like. This girl is already a ghost.

“Wonder what he’s got this week,” the girl mumbles. She fiddles with the hem of one of Trevor’s t-shirts and Catherine fights the inexplicable urge to snatch it away from her. “Really hope it’s that powder stuff again. Shit was in. _ sane. _ Had me screamin’ like a cougar and my boyfriend had to get me down off the roof of the hardware store, and he was _ so mad _ at T, haha...”

The girl sniffs again, hard, and wipes at her nose in what Catherine is starting to recognize as a tic. She turns her face up again, not bothering to shield her eyes from the sunlight beating down into them.

“...and then my boyfriend, he ain’t been home no more after that, haha...Hey, you think Trevor’ll give us extra if we both do him at the same time?”

Catherine feels sick all of a sudden. She wishes Trevor were here, and yet, she hates to think of what might happen if he were.

He may not be, but Ron is, hurrying up Zancudo Drive from his adjacent trailer. He sees the girl in Trevor’s yard and his mouth twists into a frown.

“What are _ you _ doing here?” he demands, coming to a stop by the fence. His demeanor tells Catherine that this girl is not a friend. 

“Ron, can you go get Trevor? I was lookin’ for some more of that stuff.” Sniff, wipe. “Y’know, the powder stuff, ‘cus-”

Ron shakes his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You remember what happened last time, don’t you?”

Catherine is very sure she does not want to know what happened last time. She avoids the rest of the conversation by ducking inside and pacing the kitchen for a minute before searching around for the brush and bleach she’d found in the garage. She finds them next to Wade, who had clearly been huffing the stuff. Oh, Wade. 

Catherine drops to her knees, scrubbing at one of the more stubborn stains on the linoleum and trying to figure out what’s got her so riled up. It's not that she didn't know that Trevor does drugs. There are the dozen or so prescription bottles in his bathroom that most certainly do not have his name on them. The countless tiny blue aluminum canisters of nitrous she's shuffled into trash bags. Not to mention the way the whole place positively reeks of something sickly sweet that can only be meth, underlined with weed and tobacco. It's baked into the walls at this point - no amount of fresh air from open windows is going to even make a dent in that smell.

Bizarrely, it’s not even the fact that he apparently deals them. Catherine resigned herself long ago to the fact that people will always buy drugs, and that there will always be people who sell them. She’s seen addiction in all its forms in her work at the prison, heard every grisly story. She’s no prude, either - in college, she’d dabbled but always stopped before she got in over her head. So what the hell is it that bothers her so much? She’s still scrubbing and no closer to answers or to a cleaner floor when Ron saunters in.

“Trevor about?” he asks in that anxious voice. 

Catherine doesn’t look at him, doesn’t bother to stop even though she knows she must look like a maniac. “No, and I don’t know where he is.”

There’s a pause long enough that she thinks Ron must have stepped back out.

“I know what you are,” he says, moving to where Catherine can see him, between her and the still-snoring Wade. Since it doesn’t look like he’s going to do the socially acceptable thing and leave, Catherine sits back on her heels and looks up at Ron incredulously. Trevor needs to get home already so he can be the one dealing with this creep.

“...is that right?”

“Yeah,” Ron answers, eyes narrow. He jabs a tobacco-stained finger at her. “A problem.”

_ Oh, here we fucking go. _Catherine just breathes a humorless laugh and tries to wring any semblance of comfort she can out of her monotonous buffing, even though she’s used too much bleach and the smell is making her nauseous. But Ron keeps on. 

“Yeah, yeah, just like with that lady. The cartel guy’s wife.”

Like most things involving Trevor, she thinks it’s best not to ask. Instead she rises, tears off the rubber gloves, throws down the brush with a _ smack _ that startles Wade awake and spritzes bleach on her ankles, and puts her hands up in mock-surrender. 

“You got me, Ron. I’m secretly commanding the Irish Republican Army from right here in the back of beyond. _ Tiochfaidh ár lá _ and all that.” Catherine throws open the door and gestures outside. “I’m gonna go bring the wash in. You’re welcome to fuck right off.”

But Ron doesn’t budge until she does, silent and staring. Catherine fumes her way down to the yard, thinking about how Ron shuffles like a marionette whose strings are being pulled by an alien who hasn’t quite mastered human movement, and the image makes her feel a little better. 

Of course Ron has to persist. “Yeah, when she was here, it was like Trevor didn’t even _ want _ to run the business anymore. He just sat and made goo-goo eyes at her like some kinda teenager.”

Anger wriggles around her insides and she realizes that this only ever felt like a safe place when Trevor was here. At least that girl is gone. Catherine yanks down the shirt her strange guest had been fondling as the rumble of an approaching engine nearly drowns her out. 

“Ron, Trevor isn’t here. I’ll be happy to tell him you came by to rant at me about how jealous you are that I'm staying with him instead of you, so if you could just _ please _-”

The rumble doesn’t pass, but comes to a stop in the street behind them. The scuff of boots hitting dirt has her whirling to face it, ready to tear into whoever else was coming to ruin her day.

Catherine almost crosses herself with relief when she sees Trevor standing there by his truck, those terrible gold 70s style sunglasses glinting in the afternoon sun. He doesn’t miss the pleading in her eyes, winking as he rescues her. 

“Ronald, what the fuck, may I ask, are you doing with my houseguest?” Trevor gasps with farcical outrage. “And without a _ chaperone? _ For shame!”

Ron’s obnoxious wheedle fades out of existence, drowned out by the grit of Trevor ordering him to go call someone-or-other about something. Trevor’s got his hands planted firmly on his slender hips, drawing Catherine’s eyes there and reminding her cruelly of the v-lines and trail of hair that lie just beneath his shirt.

And with all the force of colliding galaxies, imploding stars and collapsing singularities, a realization comes hurtling from the nebulous depths of her subconscious.

_ Really? _ She demands of herself. _ TREVOR??? _

_ Absolutely, _ her mind responds without pause. _ You knew that day in the garden, and probably long before then. Just look at him, Christ. _

So she does. While Trevor argues with Ron, Catherine looks. She looks at his too-big polo and creased leather boots and that Casio watch, the kind that Marty McFly wore, all of it so hopelessly uncool and so very Trevor. She looks at the cant of his hips and the muscle of his arms and his goofy tattoos. She looks at the five o’clock shadow and the grizzled hair that could really use a trim and the sharp amaretto eyes that never stop searching and calculating every aspect of every situation.

_ Yep _ , her mind confirms. Heavy inward sigh. _ Trevor. _

Ron makes tracks as Catherine remembers the smattering of bleach on her legs and goes to the garden hose.

_ Maybe you better take a shower in this cold-ass water_, she thinks as it washes away the chemical sting, _ because you need to control your thirsty goddamn self_.

“What are you up to, my little captive?” Trevor purrs as he comes closer, not helping the new and honestly alarming thirst situation. Then he blinks at the laundry that’s taking up his yard as though he just noticed it was there. “Whose are _ these? _”

Catherine nervously re-forms her ponytail to catch the loose strands, but some rebel and fall out to rest against the back of her neck anyway. It makes Trevor’s fingertips itch. 

“Uhhh, yours?” She shoots him a lopsided smirk. “You know, on the list of things I’d be able to recognize, my own clothes would be right up there. Other than the, oh, I don’t know, nine pairs of frilly panties.”

“Hey now, this is an enlightened age, sugar.” Trevor shrugs and Catherine is absolutely disgusted by what hearing that word in that voice does to the coiled-up something in her gut.

After sundown, they sit chatting and joking over takeout that Trevor ordered Wade to pick up as penance for falling asleep on the job. A feeling like hitting her funny bone shoots up Catherine’s arms when Trevor shovels half of each entree onto her plate for her and sucks hoisin sauce off his thumb. 

“Trev?”

Trevor is stunned into stillness momentarily by the unexpected nickname, then goes back to dumping way too much rice onto Catherine’s already packed plate. “Uh, yeah?”

“Did Franklin say anything to you about my car while you were in LS?” Out of the blue, Catherine’s voice is timid, her eyes averted.

“Not that I know of. Why, should he have?”

Her words start to tumble out, like he’s noticed they tend to do when she’s getting upset. 

“I don’t know, I’m just, I’m worried about it. He texted me some pictures. It’s got...it’s got fucking bullet holes in it, Trevor. Like, _ all over _ it.” Now comes the lip-chewing, right on cue. “I mean, Franklin’s being amazing and having his friend look at it, but he says it might be totaled.” And now the hand-wringing. “And the inside was already fucked up by that stupid cake and the rain and, and, I have _ got _to get to Harmony next week to sign my lease and I can’t afford another car right now and-”

“C’mere,” Trevor interrupts. “I got somethin’ to show you. Don’t look at me like that, just-” He takes Catherine’s elbow in his fingers, gently guiding her out into the cool night, to the garage behind the trailer. She watches him closely as he leaves her side, still squeezing at her own hands for comfort, wishing Trevor’s fingers had lingered just a bit longer. 

Under the flickering fluorescent light, there’s a fraying tarp that she hadn’t really had reason to notice before, caked in dirt and tied at the corners to stakes in the ground. Trevor holds up a finger and busies himself with untying the stays, kicking up a potent cloud of dust and a heavy musty smell when the thing falls away. When the air has cleared and they’ve finished hacking dirt from their lungs - there she is! Trevor is vibrating with excitement as he runs a hand along the roof. The Ruiner, sleek as hell in its coat of glossy black and shimmering gold, looks just as good as it did when he retired it over a decade ago. He steps back and admires it before turning to her. 

“I’ll make you a deal, short stack.”

Catherine seems to be jumping ahead of him, judging by the size that her already big green eyes have become and the way she’s shaking her head at him.

“No more deals. I can’t ask you to drive me all the way to Harmony, I already owe you way too-”

Trevor claps a hand to Catherine’s shoulder, making her sway. “I’m not driving you to Harmony, _ you _ are. And it ain’t that far.”

She looks between him and the car with dizzying speed before fanning her hands out defensively. “Oh, no, I can’t drive a stick. I tried to learn once, almost destroyed the transmission. It’s too much pressure.”

But Trevor doesn’t listen. “You get this baby all the way to Harmony, sign your lease, and get her back, she’s yours.”

Catherine’s hands fly up to the sides of her shocked face. “What are you talking about? What, you want to be canonized into sainthood or something?,” she sputters. “She’s _ mine? _How does that- what does that even-”

“Well, now, don’t accuse me of saintliness until I tell you your part of the bargain.”

Trevor is absolutely delighting in her flailing panic, chuckling mercilessly as she blurts out, “_ My _ part of the- how exactly is this not just you _ giving _me a fucking car?”

“Because here’s the catch,” Trevor explains, with the air of a smug professor. “This ain’t a car for amateurs. Between here and Harmony, you can’t drop the clutch. Not even once.” He glances at her, and she’s taken totally aback by the earnest way he says, “I may not be able to teach you to fly, but this...this we can do.”

Catherine starts and stops several paragraphs’ worth of sentences before she sighs, rubbing her fingertips into her forehead. “Trev, I...I don’t know what to say.”

He tosses her something he just dug out from a nearby toolbox, which turns out to be a single silver key engraved with the word ‘Imponte’.

“Don’t say anything, Cathy. Just drive.” 

“Don’t call me Cathy,” she protests, but her growing smile betrays her heart, full-to-bursting.

\--

Another night alone, another pounding headache. 

Again, Michael finds himself splayed out on the couch, his this time, with an ice pack on his head and a bowl of popcorn on his chest. The movie is an absolute classic, one of Michael’s top tens, but he just can’t make himself get into it. Being in this giant, empty house, still nursing that same hangover from his and Franklin’s spree...it fucking sucks. Even if he had to tolerate her bitching, it would be nice to have Amanda here to bring him some water or just pat his arm or _ some_thing. Franklin was right. Michael is a lonely, miserable wretch.

Finally, sweet relief - the pleasant warmth of the nighttime breeze coming in through the window combines with the familiar simpering of greyscale femme fatales to lull Michael at last into what could pass for a peaceful sleep. So peaceful that he doesn’t hear the front door creak open, nor does he hear the shuffle of boots against the foyer floor.

Michael gasps awake, shooting up and launching the popcorn to the floor when those footsteps come to a stop at his side. A dark-haired, dark-eyed man that Michael has never seen before stands before him, but Michael knows immediately who it is when the man asks, in a thick, Russian-sounding accent:

“Where is Catherine?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been the most fun chapter to write so far! I love, love, love writing everyone's favorite crime boys. 
> 
> Please keep leaving your awesome feedback. I'd love to know if things are on the right track!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone's still here, hi!!! I haven't abandoned this!! I literally think about it every! waking! moment!
> 
> So here's an extra long chapter, very Trevor-centric, annnnd very NSFW 👀👀

Niko Bellic isn’t at all like Michael expected, and he can tell the feeling’s mutual.

They look worlds apart, Michael in his grey suit - albeit disheveled from a hard sleep on the couch - and Niko in his tracksuit, so stereotypical it makes Michael want to roll his eyes. Maybe he’s going for incognito, but Niko certainly doesn’t look the part of a man who has half a million dollars laying around that he can just throw at a problem. He just expected someone more, he doesn’t know...impressive, somehow. Michael wants to think that Niko doesn’t look the part of a man that a woman like Catherine would associate with, but...sadly, he knows her better than that now.

They’re situated in the echo chamber that serves as Michael’s foyer, Niko sitting toward the bottom of the staircase with his elbows resting on his knees and his hands clenched between them, while Michael stands a safe distance away, shoulders squared and jaw tight. As they talk, Niko sees the older man’s gaze dart every so often to the hall table, where a gun likely sits in the drawer, loaded and waiting for the jetlagged Serbian intruder to make a move.

“Mister De Santa,” Niko starts again, the tense silence grating on his already dwindling patience. “If it’s about the money, it’s been transferred. You can ask your friend Les-”

“It ain’t about the money,” Michael spits back. “I ain’t telling you where she is ‘til Lester can prove to me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you are who you say you are. So just sit tight while we figure this out, will ya?”

Niko is standing in a flash, and Michael edges closer to the hall table in response, confirming Niko’s suspicions. Niko flicks open his jacket to show the .45 he keeps inside. Right now, he’s got the advantage. Michael’s glare hardens. What he wouldn’t give to have T next to him, bullying

“She’s going to Liberty City while I take care of this...issue with the Pegorinos,” Niko declares.

Michael crosses his arms, gives a short, incredulous laugh. “And if she don’t wanna go? That girl can dig her heels so deep her whole body’ll be underground before you can pull ‘er where you want ‘er.”

Niko doesn't hesitate, and Michael doesn't miss the desperation in his voice. “She’ll listen. She has no choice.”

“Besides,” Michael adds like he wasn’t listening, “somethin’ ain’t right about this. Why’d you choose now to show up? It’s like you know somethin’ I don’t.”

“We don’t have time for this! I’ve worked with these people, I know how they operate.”

“Yeah, and it was all that fine _ work _ you did with them that’s gonna get Catherine killed.”

That hits Niko right in the chest, harder than he knows how to deal with right now. Michael’s right. Of course he’s fucking right. But Michael can’t know that.

“And I trusted _ you _ and your incompetent _ friends _to keep that from happening, and look where that fucking got us.” Niko shakes his head, spreads his arms wide. “They aren’t going to forgive you killing four of their men. I don’t think you realize how much worse things just got for you.”

Michael’s on the defensive now, hackles raised, and he feels the power shift back to Niko. He’s higher up than Michael is, up on the stairs, probably on purpose. “She’s still alive, ain’t she? We did what you asked. Above and fuckin’ beyond, if you ask me. We coulda just let her go when you didn’t pay. Just let her take her fuckin’ chances against the mafia.”

Niko levels him with his stare, seeing right through him. Knowing. “No, you couldn’t.”

Michael feels his body ease up despite his mind shouting for him to double down. He takes in the expensive floor tiles that Amanda had imported from Spain, losing himself in the spectrum of color burned into the terracotta. 

“No,” he agrees after a long time, “we couldn’t.”

\--

It isn’t dreaming about fucking Niko that bothers her.

Back when he was a constant actor in her life, Niko starred frequently in Catherine’s subconscious, her conscious, and everywhere in-between. She couldn’t count the number of times she drifted off to the thought of him holding her, stroking her hair, telling his stories of home, and, when she plunged to the depths of dreaming, fucking her. Quietly tender, like she’d always imagined he’d be if he would just let her in.

Seven years spent avoiding and repressing those urges led her brain to over-generalizing, muddying everything, making her forget the details of the voice and face she spent so long memorizing, until thinking of Niko was thinking of a void. Faceless and foreign. That’s what makes his sudden reappearance in tonight’s mental meanderings especially surprising. 

Catherine suspects it’s got everything to do with Niko becoming flesh and blood to her again, and not just a vague but painful memory left on the east coast. The fact that he could be just a few hundred miles away (hell, even closer) has stirred his blurry image from the sediment of the past and pushed it up, up, up to her mind’s eye, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. She struggles to recreate him, just as she did that night that she dreamed about the tornado. Was that scar on his right hand, or his left? His eyes were more brown than hazel, right? 

No, it isn’t the fact that she’s dreaming about fucking Niko that bothers her. It’s the fact that Trevor’s there too.

Catherine is riding dream-Niko the way she’d frequently fantasized about doing, an effort to have him let someone take care of _ him _ for once, never able to come because dreams are cruel like that. She feels Niko pawing at her, hands on her waist, the sounds her brain imagines would accompany his satisfaction enveloping her. She’s on the verge of losing herself in the tangled warmth of glistening limbs until she gets the distinct feeling that they're not alone. 

Catherine grinds to a halt when she sees Trevor standing at the foot of the bed, the bed that’s become _ his _ bed. The wall-less void of dream-space shifts to Trevor’s room in the space of a heartbeat, suffocating because the AC doesn’t work in there, sick with the stale smell of dirty clothes and stagnant air. A room, she realizes, she has pictured far more than she should.

“Cath,” an approximation of Niko’s voice breathes in her ear, panting hot against her neck, “_ šta nije u redu? _” - what’s wrong?

The scrape of his teeth at her shoulder is enough to get Catherine rocking against him again, eyes fluttering so that Trevor blinks in and out of existence, but she can still feel his stare. And instead of rushing to cover herself, instead of being ashamed, she very much _ wants _ Trevor to see her. To see the parts of her that have been kept secret from him, physical and otherwise.

Somewhere far above the murky swell of her subconscious, someone is brushing hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear with a feather-light touch that she’s probably imagining. She fights to stay under. The fire in her belly tells her she has to see where this is going.

Catherine hears Trevor’s voice as though through leagues of water, telling her to wake up, but when she looks over to him, he’s still just boring into her with that unreadable expression. Niko has fallen away, his sighs and gasps dissipated, like he was never there at all. Now, there is nothing between them. Now, Trevor’s expression is far from unreadable. 

He reaches out to her, unbidden _ want _ blazing in his dark eyes, and she shudders when long fingers wrap around her arms and pull her close, the large, warm palms of his hands searching her hungrily, no longer having any need for decorum. That ever-downturned mouth with its full, cracked lips finds her jaw, her neck, her collar, magically knowing the spot directly behind her ear that melts her to putty.

Someone’s lifting her head - her real head - away from the arm of the couch, and Catherine wakes with a start when it drops, a synthetic hypnic jerk. Trevor’s grin, bordering on evil, is the first thing she sees as he perches beside her on the ratty sofa she’s called home for the last who knows how long. When she sits up, she feels it, cold against her thigh: her panties are drenched. Hopefully Trevor will attribute her scowl to his assholery this early in the morning.

“C’mon, Lucky,” he sing-songs, jerking his thumb toward the door, “we got shit to do today.”

After dragging a comb through her hair and a brush across her teeth, she staggers out the door behind him into the chilly dawn. The Ruiner sits in the street before them, metallic gold inlay dazzling proudly in the rising sun as though freshly washed, almost free of fallout from the dusty road. Trevor smoothes a hand over the glass T-top, tongue pinched between his teeth with glee, and, oddly, Catherine thinks he’s never been handsomer than he is right now.

“Shoot, hold on a sec,” she calls. Trevor sighs and folds his arms on top of the car as she disappears back into the trailer, only to pop out seconds later with one critical addition. Trevor’s flight jacket. He chokes on his own spit. 

“Where did you even _ find _ that thing?” He manages after a violent coughing fit, still doubled over when she’s come to a stop on the other side of the car.

The sleeves are laughably long, all bunched up about the elbows to let Catherine’s hands out, and the thing simply engulfs her, falling longer than her shorts, hitting mid-thigh. She fiddles nervously with the red maple leaf patch on the breast, eyes to the ground.

“Um, it, it was in a box in the garage,” she squeaks, having moved on to stroking the fleece collar. “I, um, I cleaned it off and, and…” She meets his stare now, a sweet little smile on her bare lips. Come to think of it, her whole face is bare. Trevor feels like he’s seeing her for the first time all over again. “I didn’t know you served.”

Trevor feels pinned by her expectant tone. He deflects - “And _ I _ didn’t know I gave you permission to root through my stuff.” 

“I know, I’m sorry.” Her hands drop to her sides, and the sleeves swallow them again. “If it’s too special, I’ll put it back. I understand. But, it’s just, I didn’t bring a jacket, and…”

Trevor shrugs and opens the door, playing it cool. Like this doesn’t make the list of the top ten best things he’s ever seen, only slightly behind the first time he watched the world fade away to clouds from a cockpit. “Just didn’t think it was still hangin’ around.”

“Besides, it looks a hell of a lot better on you than it ever did on me” he drawls moments later, slipping on his ballcap and sunglasses as they settle into the low leather seats. When Catherine looks over at him, Trevor’s expression, smug bordering on jubilant, reawakens the feeling of his hands sliding down her back, over her hips, cupping her ass. She stifles a reflexive shiver and blames it on the nip in the air.

This morning’s dream wasn’t the impetus for those kinds of thoughts about Trevor, she knows. It just opened the floodgates. Right now, just the two of them, close enough to hear his heart beating in the ringing quiet, close enough that a small shift would bring them into contact, she allows herself to imagine crawling over into Trevor’s lap and fogging up the windows with whatever sounds she could wring from that sinewy, tattooed throat of his.

Desperate to change the topic, she asks, “Can we get breakfast first?”

Trevor waggles a finger at her. “Ohhhh, no, missy. You can’t delay the inevitable. You’re learning to drive this thing, to-fucking-day.” He sits back against the seat, doesn’t see Catherine follow the path of his hand skimming over the dashboard. “I had ‘er all tuned up and everything. She’s as ready to hit the road as I am.”

Catherine folds her arms but the haughty effect is dampened by the fact that she can barely do it with all the excess fabric pooling around them. “I can’t learn on an empty stomach.” Trevor cracks a smile when she turns up her nose with a theatricality that he can’t help but respect. “I won’t, in fact, and you can’t make me.”

He reaches over and ruffles her carefully-groomed bangs, chuckling when she shoves him off and frantically checks the mirror. “You’re a brat, you know that?” he teases. “First you take my car, then you steal my jacket.”

As if to prove his assessment, Catherine pokes her tongue out at him, but her feigned contempt can’t survive the roar of the awakening V8, obnoxious and loud enough to rile the whole neighborhood and probably dogs three towns away. Trevor can see the realization forming in her mind as she too glides her fingers along the dash and fixes him with a stare full of awe. 

“Alright, al_right_, breakfast first,” he sighs, like he wasn’t going to give in to her demands anyway. “Where we headed?”

“To the pancake place!” she commands, triumphant.

“Pancake place it is, then.”

Catherine may think she’s touching the side of the table, but when their knees brush, she doesn’t pull away. Trevor wishes he could show this scene to himself as a lad. _ Keep it up, _ he reassures his younger self as he watches a delighted Catherine help herself to his leftovers, _ and someday you too will have your hashbrowns stolen by an angel wearing your flight jacket. _

This time, when that same waitress nods between them, questioning, Trevor can’t suppress a smile.

\--

Trevor finds that he’s not at all surprised by how quickly Catherine learns.

He’d expected a lot more hemming and hawing, more protestations about how she won’t accept his offering, but from day one, she’s come steeled with all the shrewd intensity she’d brought to the hangar when he taught her Airplane Engines 101. It’s...honestly sexy as hell, the all-too-serious focus with which she absorbs his words, as though he were explaining the secrets of the universe. If Lester took her under his wing, Trevor imagines it wouldn’t be long before they were toppling governments. 

They’d established a comfy little routine over the weekend and part of the following week: he wakes her up early, buys them breakfast, and brings her out to the airfield so they can conquer the twists and turns of the dirt track encircling it. It smacks of comfort and a weird brand of domesticity that Trevor has never come close to tasting before. Today, Catherine insisted on fast-tracking her graduation from the backroads and the airstrip to big bad Route 68. Tomorrow, she’ll drive it to Harmony.

“You’re wasted on the police force, you know,” Trevor mutters after a couple hours of riding alongside as Catherine practices driving in what little traffic Sandy Shores can offer. She hasn’t stalled the engine even once today, and Trevor isn’t familiar with the swelling in his chest, but he thinks it’s pride.

“I’m not on the force, I told you that,” she chides, pulling the emergency brake and folding her hands in her lap. They idle at the abandoned motel, AC blasting, probably not the only two lost souls haunting the place. Catherine stares ahead at the passing dust clouds while Trevor looks freely at her behind his sunglasses. “I couldn’t do that stuff. When I applied at Pershing, HR told me I’d have to pass all these physical tests - a hundred push-ups, drag around a hundred-and-fifty pound dummy, that sort of thing. I worked my ass off, literally, and they didn’t even test me.” 

Trevor whistles, honestly impressed. “So, you used to have abs and stuff?”

“Maybe,” Catherine smirks. She tilts back her seat a bit, leans her cheek on her palm to face her passenger. “Besides, it’s no good having more than one cop in the family. My dad screwed up that dream enough for me.”

Trevor’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead. “Wait a minute. Your _ dad_, who’s in prison, is a _ cop?_” He tilts his seat back to match hers, settles in with his fingers laced behind his head. His foot starts wiggling; all the sitting around is making him tense. All the being alone with her, in an enclosed space. Even with the AC on high, sweat beads and rolls down his chest. “Figured there was some kind of law on the books to prevent that.”

“Right?” she laughs. “But this was back in the 90’s, when all the gang war stuff was going on. The LSPD knew things were only gonna get worse if the cops responsible didn’t get what was coming to them, at least a little bit.”

Trevor nods, vaguely remembering the snippets of news stories he’d caught while he and Michael had been traipsing around the midwest. _ What a shithole, _ he recalls Michael saying, _ Good thing I’m never gonna go there. _

“My dad was on that gang unit, C.R.A.S.H. - Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums,” Catherine explains in a mock news-announcer voice. Trevor snorts derisively. “I know. Hokey, right? I’m sure you’ll be simply appalled to know that they were also just piles of sentient garbage masquerading as human beings. They killed an officer who tried to report them and planted evidence on this one gangbanger. Caused a bunch of riots.”

Trevor grunts. “Sheesh, the more I hear about Mr. Rowan, the more I think he shoulda been awarded father of the year.”

“He’s the reason I went into supervision. I felt like, if someone who cared had been there to stop him and people like him before they even got started, maybe...I don’t know. Maybe a bunch of people wouldn’t have had to die.”

“Pigs and gangsters,” Trevor jeers. “The very pinnacle of society. You should start a foundation for the poor darlings. I’ll front you the cash.”

He can feel Catherine shoot him a Look, but he just keeps on smirking out the window.

“That’s what I _ thought _ I was going to do,” she continues, undeterred. “But I kind of started to learn the hard way that one person isn’t going to fix anything that big on their own.”

Trevor catches her eye. “How’s that?”

So she tells him about the inmate, Marley, and how those guards under her supervision refused to give him his inhaler, almost let a man die alone and gasping on a cold concrete floor, simply because they didn’t like him. And as she goes back to driving the length of the landing strip, back and forth until it becomes muscle memory, she tells him about how the inmates that scared her witless at first ended up being the most adamant that she write to them once she left Pershing. Trevor marvels at her all the while, always as open as can be with him, unafraid to be vulnerable with her passion and her fear and her hope.

“You should take over Steve Haines’ dumbass reality show,” he says when they’ve finally called it a day. They rest on the Ruiner’s cooling hood, their backs against the windshield, watching the sky get dark and the stars peek out. Sunsets at the airstrip are like nothing else; just you and the horizon, the blazing edge of the world framed by the blue-black peaks of Josiah and Chiliad. “‘Cause I know for a fact he don’t care anywhere near as much as you do.”

Comfortable silence takes hold, and behind closed eyes, Trevor imagines this moment in a different context. One where it would be okay for him to close this gap between them and run his fingertips through her hair, across her cheek, down her back, kiss her soft and slow and tell her he thinks she’s just about the best thing. He’s almost drifted off despite the metal digging into his bony ass when Catherine’s soft voice brings him back to this much less fun reality. 

“Trev?”

He shifts and urges his boner not to ruin this for him.

“Yeah.”

Catherine takes a moment to gather her thoughts, which gives Trevor time to study her in his peripheral vision. There’s a peace in her lidded, stargazing eyes that resonates in him, just as much as it did when he first saw it in a woefully two-dimensional photo on Lester’s computer screen. Seeing the real thing now, it's...he can't describe it, but knowing how lucky he is, it makes his insides hurt. 

“Thank you.”

“For what?” He shifts to his side so he can see her better, but she stays on her back, head resting on her clasped hands, foot bobbing leisurely. “I already told ya, she ain’t yours ‘til you make the drive to Harmony.”

Catherine turns up her eyes to him, and it’s so corny but the starlight in them is breathtaking, like miniature green galaxies only he can see. He’s careful not to let his gaze roam her, laid out so nicely. Careful not to let himself entertain the thought that his are the only eyes that can see her right now, like she doesn’t have a care in the world, like she’s all for him. When he bought this car with his first score, back when the years started with ‘nineteen’, Trevor never imagined he’d see a woman that looks like this one pressing her curves against it, torn denim squeezing at her thighs and eyes so knowing, so telling, that can hardly stand to look at them.

“No, silly. I mean, yes, thank you for the car. She’s...well, she’s fucking gorgeous and I don’t deserve her-”

“Don’t feel too bad about that. No one does.”

“-but what I mean is, I haven’t thought of the Pegorinos or Bolingbroke or anything like that since we got here.” Catherine sits up and looks right into him, searching his soul, it feels like, and Trevor believes he wouldn’t have turned his head for anything. Please, god, let her find whatever it is she's looking for in there. “I think this might be the safest I’ve ever felt. I mean it.”

The _ unreal _ surge of happiness that courses through Trevor’s veins is paralyzing, pure dopamine bathing whatever neurons have survived this long. No woman, no _ person_, has ever felt comfortable around him, much less safe. He can guarantee it. He wants to wrap her up and squeeze her to him, feel the weight of her on his chest as the weight of the world leaves his shoulders.

He swallows and wills his hands to stay right where they are as he mumbles, “Glad to be of service, sweet pea.”

There’s more quiet, punctuated by owls and bugs and distant traffic and by the guy who always walks his Rottweiler across the airfield at this time of night ("You must pay the toll if you want to pass!", Catherine declares as she pets the wiggling dog). It stays that way even as she drives them home, until Trevor works up the courage to speak something that’s been eating at him ever since the night he decided that the Ruiner was hers (whether she met his requirements or not). 

“There’s one more stipulation, you know,” he says. The trailer door swings shut behind them, leaving them in almost total darkness, suddenly and unexpectedly intimate. Trevor’s skin is thrumming at the sight of Catherine’s face illuminated only by a stark orange beam from the porchlight, spilling through the blinds. “If you want to keep her, there’s one more thing.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that?” She sounds amused, and judging by the way she’s swinging the Ruiner’s key around her finger, she is. Trevor doesn’t want to bring down the mood, but he has to get this out if it kills him. It might be his only chance.

“When you leave here and go back to your boring-ass, nine-to-five life…” Trevor hesitates, clenching his eyes shut against his jangling nerves but forcing himself to open them again. “...you aren’t allowed to just drop off the face of the earth.”

Trevor winces when she abruptly stops spinning the key around and drops her hands to her sides. God, she has so much power over him now. She could torture him, force him to come right out and say that he wants some place in her life, a life he hadn’t even known existed just a few weeks ago. It feels like an immutable truth now, the innate kind that, once you become aware of it, you realize you’ve known it for a long time. She could crush him into dust right now, and he’d have no say in it. 

“I won’t.” Catherine’s voice is silky, demure. Wholly unaware of the level of influence she has over this moment, over his entire _ life_. “I already decided. You’re kind of stuck with me.”

Her eyes are wide open, almost daring, inviting him to tip into them, plunge headfirst. It makes Trevor growl deep in his throat, thankfully inaudible. He stays where he is, but the pull between them is so forceful, so unmistakable that he has to believe that she feels it too. He thinks he’ll go crazy if she doesn’t.

“I have a stipulation, too.” A stipulation for what, she doesn’t say. It doesn't matter anyway.

Trevor swallows, wetting his dry throat. “Shoot.”

“A graduation party.” She brings her finger up to her chin, brows knitted thoughtfully. “A combination driving-graduation and lease-signing and new-job-starting party.”

When Trevor's face contorts in disgust, Catherine rushes to defend her idea before he can get it in his mind to outright refuse. “A little party, just us. You, me, Wade. Ron, if he promises to behave himself." She puts her hands on his arms, more than her usual light touch, pleading. Trevor holds his breath. "Come on, Trev, hmm? It'll be fun.”

Trevor stands a defeated man. Catherine backs away as he sighs and skates his fingers through his hair, skin tingling at the absence of even the briefest contact. “Yeah, alright.” He holds a warning finger near her face. “But _ just _ us, y’hear? And I get to pick the music. None of your fucking snore-inducing easy listening bullshit. Proper party stuff.”

Catherine turns on her heel, triumphant, and heads for the bathroom, probably already scheming. Trevor calls uselessly after her, “I mean it, I hear even a note of Sinatra and I’m setting the stereo on fire.” 

He’s still standing there with his finger in the air when the shower starts running and the trailer fills with her humming, and he’s pretty sure it’s a Sinatra song.

Packie’s voice, mocking Michael for being pussywhipped, echoes in his head.

\--

The “little party, just us” that Trevor was promised predictably grew into a neighborhood affair.

Wade must’ve shot off his dumb fucking mouth, and word travels fast in a town where the most exciting goings-on center around which livestock are giving birth. People Trevor hasn’t seen since he moved in, along with a fair few he’s never even met, are crammed into his trailer, dancing and drinking and yapping. He hit his limit at least an hour ago, when some drunk ass-hat stepped on his foot, but everytime he looks at Catherine, her glow is so radiant, so far removed from the recent insanity in her life. Taking this away from her might be a crime against humanity.

Just now, he’s across the room from her, leaning against the kitchen counter and nursing a beer that he’s let get room temperature. It reminds him of that night he took her up to the San Chianskis and they watched the world pass them by on the Palomino Freeway while throwing back lukewarm stouts. He chuckles to himself when he remembers how Catherine scream-laughed and clutched onto him for dear life as he swerved all over the road on the bike, in between traffic with a healthy disregard for such mundane things as road signs and stop lights. The feeling of her little fists pounding against his back, shouting for him to go faster, her knees squeezing his thighs when he obeyed. He’s determined not to let even one detail slip away in the flow of time.

It sours the experience to realize that, yet again, he’s sitting on the fringes, watching her chatter away at the center of a circle of…what, admirers? The thought makes his jaw go so tight it gives him an instant headache. It seems to be her natural state, drawing others to her, working a room in ways Trevor never has and never will, in ways that remind him of Michael, just without the sleazy undertones. She isn’t looking to use any of these people. She just enjoys their company. Trevor can’t decide which is worse to him right at this moment. He can’t decide if the fact that he would let her use him for any purpose under the sun makes him despicable or just pathetic. The only thing that brings him comfort is the fact that, no matter how hard these hillbilly would-be suitors try, Catherine hasn’t once laughed as loud as he’s heard her laugh for him, when she ditches her socially-acceptable giggle and really_ cackles_, her head thrown back, holding his arm to steady herself.

She’s got on the first thing he ever saw her in, the green dress with the ruffles, the one that cradles her hips fucking _ perfectly _ and puts her superb rack on display, the one that makes his jeans feel a little too tight. Trevor sends up a silent thank-you to Michael for sending it back with him. It slinks over her skin as she twists and wiggles to the music, lifting the hem of her skirt _ juuust _ enough for him to get a peek at the tops of those damn seamed stockings. Him and everyone else, and everyone else _ is _ looking. How could they not? Why, in the course of any of their pointless, backwater lives, would they choose to do anything but look at her? His fists clench and relax reflexively, the weight of the full cup in his hand keeping him tethered. Trevor does his utmost to focus on other things.

The air is pleasant enough despite the crowd. Not too hot, heavy and smoky and sweet with the smell of weed and icing from the cake someone brought, pulsing with music and laughter and life. The light is low and inviting, only a couple of lamps sporadically placed on various surfaces, along with one of those annoying things another someone brought, the twirling things that shoot lasers all over the room, especially directly into your eyes. It’s not all that different from the dozens, maybe hundreds of house parties he used to crash as a gangly youth. He was rarely uninvited for long; dealers never are. Maybe it’s the benzos, but it all sets him more at ease than he’s been in a while, especially since he started sharing his space with a woman. And not just any woman. _ This _ fucking woman.

_ This _ woman, who takes up all the space in his head, who tumefies his brain until it threatens to crack open his skull and spill its wet contents. Giving him no room to even hope of storing or retrieving any other information. This woman, who drains him of the energy to scheme and plot in favor of doing whatever it takes to keep her talking to him. 

For the first time since his mother, so beloved, so despised, Trevor is scared of a woman. Fucking terrified.

But the light she gives off, fuck. It takes the measly, faraway starlight of his plans with Chef, with Oscar, and just eclipses it. She is the sun by comparison, and she is the moon, and she is the streetlights that stretch from here to Los Santos, feeding people into the city like an artery, and she is brighter than all the blinding lights of that sorry sham of a city combined. And he’s jealous of her. Jealous of the way she affects him. Wishes he had ever, or _ could _ ever, have that effect on someone else. If he had, maybe things would have been different.

But he knows better. He knows, through years of agonizing goddamn trial and error (mostly the latter), that if he so much as approaches her with anything even _ close _ to affection in his heart, platonic or otherwise, the Countdown will start. The time varies wildly, but it tears everyone away from him in the end.

_ Fuck it!_, the little demon on his shoulder screams out into the universe, having strangled the corresponding angel on Trevor’s other shoulder decades ago. _ Fuck that pussy bullshit! Fuck it right in its ear, sideways, without the benefit of lubrication! Tell her she makes your dick hard! Tell her she makes your brain act dumb! Just, for fuck’s sake, TELL HER! _

Catherine might get spooked when she sees him stalking toward her with the intensity of some kind of wild animal, but Trevor doesn’t much care. He also doesn’t care that he doesn’t know what he’s going to do when he gets over to her. She’ll be leaving soon, breaking the bubble the two of them have been living in, and there are too many factors out there in the real world that Trevor can’t control. But tonight, on his own turf, maybe he has a chance at making himself understood, for once in his miserable life. 

Trevor pulls back an instinctive fist when he feels a hand clap down on his shoulder halfway across the room, and takes a little too long to drop it when he sees that the hand in question belongs to his neighbor.

He laughs humorlessly, lips curled into a sneer, his breaths coming short and shallow. “Ron, you cocksucker, you’ve had some bad timing, but _ this_-”

Ron recoils. “S-sorry, Trevor, sorry, but, but-”

“_B-b-b-but._”

“It’s Oscar, he’s, he’s here.”

Trevor spreads his arms wide, beer spilling over the lip of his cup and onto his hand with the motion. “Well invite ‘im in, then! We got enough to go around. Now, if you’ll fuckin’ excuse me.”

Ron has him by the shoulder again. This time, Trevor bats him off, snarling. Not one head turns their way.

“Jakowski-”

“T, I-I’m awful sorry, but he’s here to…” Ron trails off, looking conspicuously from side to side before cupping his mouth and hissing, “_ talk business. _”

Oh. _ Oh. _Goddamn it.

“Guz-_mannn!_” Trevor crows, stepping out on the front porch and closing the din into the trailer behind him. He sneers at some rednecks vaping huge cotton-candy-smelling clouds into the air over by the steps, coupled with threats of molestation, and they beat a hasty retreat up the road. “What can I gitcha, pardner?”

Oscar tilts his head toward Ron from where he’s leaning against the porch railing and holds up his frosty bottle.

“Everything’s ready, T,” he reports, bypassing the pleasantries. Trevor has always liked that about him. “My guys have everything set up for you across the border. Shouldn’t have no problems from the Grande _ or _ the Aztecas.” 

Trevor deflates a little. He’d honestly all but forgotten. Things are different for him now than they were when he and Oscar started laying these plans. Where it had once brought the thrilling prospect of a major step forward for his operation, flying down to Mexico for a week now means time spent away from home. Away from her and any chance he might have to...do what? Trevor hasn’t figured that bit out yet. 

“Oh, that’s, uh…” With some effort, Trevor dons his business cap and shares a wily look with a nodding Ron. “_ Ex_cellent news, Oscar my man!”

“Yeah,” Ron agrees, still nodding like some kind of fucking dashboard ornament. “It’ll be great to finally really get this thing goin’, huh, T? Without any- any distractions?”

Trevor ignores him. “So when are we thinkin’ of rollin’ this thing out, my good buddy?”

Oscar pulls his beer away from his lips. “They’ll be expecting you this weekend, if everything works out alright.”

Not alright, Trevor thinks. Catherine starts her new job inside of two weeks. He knows where she lives now, sure. Saw the tiny house when she went to sign her lease this morning, noted the address without really meaning to. But he has to make it so that she wouldn’t _ mind _ if he showed up there. Maybe even after inviting him. 

_ The Countdown!_, his brain reminds him.

“Nah, not this weekend,” Trevor says, scratching his stubble with a put-on air of nonchalance. “Got a big score that needs taking with my guys back in LS. Next couple days is the only time we can move on it.”

Oscar lowers his drink, looking pretty baffled. Ron stares at the ground, no doubt rummaging through his addled mind for a memory of Trevor telling him about this.

“That a problem?”

Oscar shakes his head, eyebrows raised. “Uh...not at all, T. Sure.” The rumble of a diesel engine turning the corner onto Zanduco Drive nearly drowns him out. “It’s just, y’know. The longer we wait, the higher the chance the Aztecas will catch wind. They got cartel ties too, y’know.”

“I _ know _ that,” Trevor snaps, just as a gigantic black truck comes to a stop out in the street, the squeak of its brakes and the hiss of exhaust ear-splittingly loud. 

Some guy in a camo ballcap leans out the window, slaps his hand down on the door. Trevor recognizes him immediately as one of the assholes vaping in his yard not five minutes ago. The guy flashes a 9mm in his other hand.

“You ever fuckin’ disrespect us like that again, I ain’t just gonna _ show _ this piece!” 

Can’t be any older than twenty, Trevor thinks. He kind of respects the balls on this kid. Another face appears in the window, leaning over the driver.

“I got cousins in the Lost, asshole, let’s see you molest them!”

“I think the vape juice seeped into what’s left of your brain, you white trash, sister-fucking piece’a shit,” Trevor barks back, flipping them both off, a middle finger for each. “What, your dick that small, you need a truck bigger than your trailer to make up for it?”

“Fuck you, Philips, you fucking fag! Come _ do _ somethin’ about it!”

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Trevor shouts, laughing, but it’s lost when the band of rednecks roars off into the night, tires screeching around the turn onto the main road, narrowly avoiding a group of teenagers and their golf cart. Trevor turns to Oscar to find he’s already got the same idea burning in his eyes.

“You up for a little rodeo, cowboy?”

\--

Catherine’s on the couch with Wade and what she assumes are his friends, with the baggy jorts and the clown paint and the stink of salvia. The type of people who would find a half-smoked Newport on the ground and finish it. But they’re cheerful and loud and Catherine appreciates the distraction. Trevor’s been eyeballing her all night, that much is certain, but he straight up disappeared when she got it in her mind to see if she couldn’t ferret his intentions out of him with some good old-fashioned flirting.

Her gut tells her there’s _ something _ there, and she trusts her gut. And there’s evidence; in his indirect way, Trevor had told her that he wanted to keep this thing going even after she left. This ambiguous, subtextual, exhausting thing that involves a lot of water-testing and boundary-pushing. You don’t reveal your traumas to each other and _ not _ come away as friends at least, right? 

She feels like they’ve reached the line of “this far, no further” and gotten stuck, have been stuck ever since he started teaching her to drive the Ruiner, and the gap between “here” and whatever lies on the other side of the line may as well be measured in light-years.

What is it about her that repels none but the men she wants to be closest to? 

Wade has been pushing a joint toward her all night, but she’s declined each offer with watery excuses about how weed does weird stuff to her, wanting to keep a clear head in case Trevor decided to actually do something other than stare. Now, when she feels the tips of Wade’s fingers at her arm, she relents.

What bothers her the most about all of this stuff between her and Trevor, Catherine decides after more than a couple of drags from Wade’s spliff, is that he’s always so _ open _. It made sense for her to wonder how Niko thought of her, or if he thought of her at all; with Niko, it was always deflect, repress, conceal. But Trevor...with him, it’s a wild ride of divulge, announce, overshare. It sounds nuts, but, between him and Niko, Trevor might just be the healthier human being. There’s a mighty respectability to his insistence on always laying his cards right on the table and expecting others to do the same. (How he had stayed such good friends with someone as, shall we say, stingy with the truth as Michael, she’d never know.)

If Trevor wanted something more than to just hang out sometimes, wouldn’t he just come right out and say it?

She smokes as much as she can tolerate, holds it in as long as possible, and predictably, her thoughts go fuzzy. Notions that sting become agreeable, abstract blotches that are safe enough to examine at arm’s length. She can wonder at that _ thing _ Trevor has, something an old movie she loves would have dubbed “It”. Undeniable once you noticed it (and she _ does _ regret that it took her so long to notice it). Dizzying. Scary. Like standing on a cliff with your toes hanging over the edge.

God, she hasn’t been high in so long. This shit is way stronger than what she remembers. The more she talks to him, the more Catherine realizes that Wade is the kind of guy she definitely would have hung around in high school. Just fringe enough that he would've upset her mother's traditional sensibilities, but not so much so that she’d be sent straight to the grave like Trevor would have. The type of guy for whom there is no problem that can’t be overcome just by lighting up. Simple and easy.

When Wade passes Catherine the joint, it’s just like old times; lazing around on someone’s ratty couch in their parents’ basement while said parents argue upstairs about how much of a disappointment their precious little boy or girl has become. There aren’t many differences between then and now. Instead of Stevie Nicks and her crystal visions, the stereo is blasting some type of carnival-themed rap that she knows would make Trevor follow through with his threat to use it as firewood. If he were here.

And when Catherine’s head gets heavy with pleasant dullness and sleep, resting on Wade’s shoulder with his own head weighing hers down, what wakes her isn’t someone’s mom shouting down the stairs for everyone to leave. Instead it’s the gruff but gentle hands and rigid lines of muscle of someone’s arms easily lifting her up and carrying her, someone that smells familiar, like gunpowder and sweat and Irish Spring. She latches onto the strength and heat of the someone’s neck, burrows into the broad expanse of his chest, feels his shirt scrape at her cheek, draws in his scent and hums it back out happily. Even if it’s all in her head, she’s content to stay there, despite the hint of earth underlined by the rusty stench of blood.

Trevor’s voice floods her, so close to her ear, so low and rough that she can’t stifle a shiver. 

“You be careful with little Wadey’s heart, now,” he rumbles from deep in his throat, pulling the door to his bedroom mostly closed with his boot. “I can’t use him if he’s all dejected and heartbroken.”

Even though the walls are barely there, they're alright for keeping the sounds of the fading party at bay. Trevor leans down to deposit Catherine on his bed, meaning to let her sleep it off while he shoos away the rest the mooching stragglers. Her arms tighten around his neck when he goes to stand, pulling him off balance. He throws a knee and both hands out to brace himself against the mattress so he doesn’t topple onto her.

“I don’t feel good,” she whines. Trevor swallows when she presses her forehead against his jaw. Her hair smells like his shampoo.

“Well that’s what happens when you smoke a bunch of weed after not having any for ten years, sweet pea.” 

He can feel his pulse tapping out a breakneck rhythm against her cheek, where it rests against his jugular.

"I love that," she giggles.

"Love what?" he asks, voice thick, barely above a whisper.

"’Sweet pea’. No one’s ever called me that. It’s so cute.”

Trevor’s back is getting sore, but Catherine’s grip may as well be steel. That’s not true, he could pry her off if he really wanted to. She yawns big and long and squeezes him tighter. He doesn’t mind that she’s choking him a little bit.

“Sweet pea. _ Lathyrus Odoratus_,” she recites, voice so small as to be nearly inaudible. “They’re endangered, you know.”

“Yeah, well. There ain’t many in this world like you, that’s for damn sure.” Trevor cringes at himself. “Jesus, I’m glad you’re trashed so you won’t remember how cheesy that line was.”

Trevor ducks his chin to his chest in an effort to slip Catherine’s arms over his head, but he can’t. He can’t because he is stupefied by the distinct feeling of lips moving against his skin.

“You don’t need to use Wade,” Catherine mumbles, and...yep, those are definitely her lips. Working against his throat. Not really kissing it, just kind of...feeling it? Still. Fucking _ still. _

“You can use me, Trev.” She giggles again. “Use me all up.”

Trevor is instantly, painfully hard. 

Oh, who's he kidding. He's been varying degrees of hard all goddamn night.

“_You are going to fucking kill me,_” he breathes, at his very wits’ end, and he means it. God, does he mean it. He’s so fucking close to being flush against her body that it’s making him practically rabid with lust. 

“Trev, I don’ wanna leave.” 

Trevor feels like he did once when he was being thrashed by waves at the beach as a kid. His mother hadn’t been paying attention and he’d wandered off and gotten washed away in the undertow, the ocean sucking him relentlessly out to sea, mouth filling with water whenever he tried to gasp for air. Powerless against the whims of nature. This feels exactly like that.

“No one’s making you.”

“No, I mean-” she yawns again - “I don’ wanna move to Harmony. I don’ wanna go anywhere.”

“You just signed your lease,” Trevor chides, shocking himself with his sudden appeal to responsibility. “You gotta go to Bolingbroke and fix the justice system for all the poor little lost boys like me. Remember?”

Catherine doesn’t seem to have heard him. "Please stay,” she all but whimpers, and she definitely is choking him now with how hard she’s crushing her forehead against his throat.

A million and one micro-considerations whiz by in the space between his ears, alarms clanging while a mantra flashes neon red, so bright he can practically see it before his eyes: No good, Very bad, Don't do it.

"Yeah, alright," Trevor relents. The springs creak with his movement, and that particular sound in this particular context sends a jolt straight to his dick, reminding him that it’s straining urgently against his waistband. "I gotta go to the bathroom first though."

Catherine snuggles up to his pillow, burying her face into it, and turns away from the noise and light Trevor lets in when he opens the door again. She mumbles something that sounds like "what for?"

"I'll tell you when you're older."

\--

Despite the very persuasive points given by his shoulder-devil, Trevor’s rational side won out. 

He did jerk off, pathetically, over the toilet, lasting approximately five seconds when he recreated the feeling of Catherine’s lips caressing the spot between his jaw and neck, but he never went back to the bedroom. Trevor didn’t think he could survive a scenario wherein Catherine woke up with him at her back and regretted it, or worse, didn’t remember asking him to be there. So, after he left the bathroom, he forced out the last of the stoned interlopers (some of whom he removed physically) and rolled Wade unceremoniously onto the floor so he himself could have the couch.

He wakes around three in the afternoon, his back radiating pain like he had an all-night spinal tap, and wonders how Catherine hasn’t taken him up on his repeated offer for her to switch to the bed. He’s surprised she isn’t all hunched over like Lester. 

When he goes to his room and she isn’t there, Trevor worries. When he can't find her, he starts to panic.

He storms the length of the party-ravaged trailer, calling her name, half-expecting to find a ransom note on the table when he finds that the only person passed out on the carpet is Wade. The irritating smell of cigarette smoke hits him over and above the stink of spilled liquor as he’s pacing past the front door for the third time, too strong to be a neighbor’s. 

Trevor finds her in the sun-drenched yard, slumped in the beat-up old recliner that’s half-buried in the brush at the front of his trailer. As he thought, she’s smoking.

"Jesus fuck, you scared the shit out of me. I thought-"

Catherine's crying. Or, she was, he can’t tell. She taps cigarette ash into the overflowing ashtray balanced on the recliner's arm. Recent tears flowed freely down her flushed cheeks, and they’ve dragged mascara down the contours in muddled streaks. Trevor just stands there, brain rapidly shutting down. 

He acts on his instinct to snatch the cigarette from Catherine’s fingers, flicking it away into the sand. Her face pinches in quiet outrage, but she just plucks another from the pack and lights it without a word. This image takes him right back to the hundreds of times he went round and round with Michael about how he should quit. Michael's hair was darker then, and Trevor's was thicker.

“You been around Michael too much,” is all he can think to say. “His nasty habit rubbed off on you.”

She still doesn’t say anything, just sniffles and takes a drag while staring through the ground. There’s something hopeless in her expression Trevor deeply dislikes, something he recognizes. He rips the whole pack from her other hand and hurls it with a grunt into the permanent mud puddle under Ron’s dripping AC unit. When Catherine whirls on him, he just looks down at her with a mixture of pity and disapproval.

“Where’d you even get those?” He scowls. “You ain’t been goin’ out, have you?”

“Wade,” Catherine mumbles, looking away, but she matches Trevor’s disdain and then some when she looks back. “And let’s not pretend you don’t spend half your time out of your mind on shit way worse than this.”

_ If this were anyone else…_, Trevor thinks for more or less the millionth time, tensing and relaxing his fists. The urge to strangle Wade is strong. Last night was so good, why does this shit have to come along now? 

_ The Countdown! _

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” he mutters tersely, gesturing at the grimy ashtray. “But this ain’t like you.”

“Oh, like you’d know,” Catherine snaps, standing now. “You won’t even-” Then she cuts herself off, shaking her head like it will dislodge whatever she’s thinking. Her expression goes slack, and she very well may start crying again. “I’m sorry, Trev. I don’t know what’s happening right now.”

Trevor crosses his arms and watches her sink back down into the mildewy armchair. “Shit’s fucked up,” he explains with a shrug. “You try to act all tough all the time, like it doesn’t bother you, but…” He shifts his weight awkwardly. It's just now sunk in that he was just apologized to. “I can tell.”

Catherine nods, then shakes her head again. 

“You know what? I don’t even think it’s that. I meant it when I said it's easy to forget about all that bullshit out here. I _ like _ it here, I really do, but…” She gives him a wet, wincing glance. “I wanna go home. I miss my dog. And my bed. And my stuff.”

Trevor tries not to hurt. He wants her to say something like, _ I meant what I said last night. I don’t want to leave. I want to stay here. With you. _He does what always helps him distract himself: he follows his impulse.

Catherine yelps when he bends and slings her over his shoulder, then she’s shrieking with glee as he hefts her up the steps. Trevor sets her down right inside the front door but she doesn’t move away from the weight of his hands on her shoulders. She’s smiling, but there are still black smudges all under her eyes. He wants to wipe them away. He never wants to see them again. 

Trevor checks his watch and tells her, “I’m leavin’ in...let’s say, an hour. With or without ya. So get yourself ready and we’ll go forget allllll about this bullshit. Deal?”

Her eyes are positively sparkling. “Deal!” She doesn’t even ask where they’re going. 

Trevor’s settling in at the kitchen table for a pre-bender beer when she sticks her head out from the bathroom. The black streaks are gone. 

“Oh, and for your information, I was smoking way before I met Michael.”

“Oh, well that changes everything.” Trevor taps his watch. “Forty-five minutes, girly. Time’s a-wastin’.”

\--

An hour (and a half) later, Trevor’s on top of the world again. 

They’re huddled in the far corner of the Yellow Jack’s bar, just the two of them, hidden from the rest of the world. It’s the fucking best.

After one beer: 

“Townley?”

“Yeah, Townley. Michael fucking Townley. That De Santa garbage is, surprise surprise, just another in a sordid forty-five year history of one hundred percent, all-natural, organic bullshit. Add it to the pile. You ain't heard nothin' yet.”

After two beers:

“'Michael of the saints', gimme a fuckin' break. Y'know, he drank the fuckin’ kool-aid. Oh, _ yes_. He drank gallons of that shit. Starting sometime in 2004 and probably way before that. It went straight through his blood-brain barrier and turned his mind to socially acceptable mush that- that sustains itself on Taco Bomb, and, and _ Fame or Shame _, for fuck’s sake!” 

After three, Catherine’s the one doing the ranting:

“...and, and he has the gaul, the fucking _ audacity, _ to wonder why he's miserable?”

All the angst that comes with reliving the distant past dissolves the instant Catherine puts her hand on his knee and squeezes. 

“God, Trev, I’m so sorry. He fell a long way, didn't he?” Then, her expression thoughtful, “I guess that explains the tattoo.”

Trevor’s raving...she doesn’t just tolerate it, the way everyone else does; smiles tight and eyes searching wildly for an opportunity for escape. She _ listens_. She asks _ questions_. She doesn’t condone his madness, but she tries to _ understand _ it. And of all the people he knows, all the people who only hang around because he’s trapped them in his orbit, Catherine is the first one who’s come along willingly.

He’s on his fourth beer and feeling fine, better than fine, but he can see her getting a little swimmy after one and a half. It’s kind of endearing. It also means that her inhibitions are slipping. Every once in a while, Trevor will feel the barest hint of her fingertip running along a vein in his forearm, tracing the blown-out lines of his tattoos, for mere seconds at a time, like she thinks she’s being sneaky and he won’t notice. He doesn’t take advantage of it, doesn’t try to get in any covert touches of his own, but when he asks about the weird spoked designs around both of her elbows, like old-timey wagon wheels, she sheds Trevor's jacket and practically shoves one of her arms at him for his inspection. 

“It’s a breaking wheel,” she explains, a little wobbly on her stool until Trevor wraps a steadying arm around her shoulder and grips her other arm in his fingers. Catherine turns in toward his chest. Christ, she smells good. She feels so small in his grasp. It takes him a minute to notice himself idly running his thumb over her wrist, and stop.

“Huh. That’s pretty metal.”

“Mhm. I was named after this real badass, Saint…” She pauses to take in a sharp breath, swallowing down a burp. “Saint Catherine of Alexandria. Patron saint of students and unmarried girls, so I’m two for two. ‘Least I was when I got the tattoos.” She smiles soppily, and Trevor wonders if he shouldn’t tell her to slow down. 

“You never told me you were married.”

“Quiet, you,” she laughs, pushing a finger into his sternum. “She was, like, this...amazing Catholic or whatever. So amazing that the emperor sentenced her to torture.”

“I like where this is going.” Trevor waggles his eyebrows, and the finger still at his chest becomes a palm that thumps him lightly.

“I said quiet!” Catherine chastises. “So he wanted her tortured, for, like...being so good at Catholicism, I guess. But when they tried to put her on the wheel-” she holds up her other finger meaningfully “- it _ shattered_. Just- _ poof_. Dust. And that seemed pretty fuckin’ cool to me, so I had it permanently etched into my skin.”

“Pretty metal,” Trevor repeats. “So, what happened? Did the emperor see the error of his ways? Set her free?”

She looks up at him pointedly from behind her mostly empty glass. “He had her beheaded.”

Their guffawing has Janet throwing withering glares their way, but Trevor sees the type of knowing smile that one might aim at naughty kids. Which is ridiculous. Trevor looks ridiculous next to her. But it doesn’t matter in the slightest, because for the moment, she’s all his.

Yeah right, if only. Trevor recognizes the barely-concealed, hungry glances of just about every male standing around the packed bar, eyefucking the cleavage you could lose your dog in. It makes him nervous to leave her alone, but if he holds this piss any longer, he might actually die. When he can’t take it anymore, he makes pointed eye contact with Janet behind the bar and directs her eyeline to Catherine, who is inhaling an entire bowl of cashews. 

Some rail of a kid in beat-up cowboy boots and an even worse-off matching hat shoots him a nervous look over the urinal wall, and when Trevor leaves the bathroom minutes later (even stopping to wash his hands. With soap.), he sees why.

The kid is asking Catherine to dance, and she isn’t saying no. 

Trevor stays rooted by the bathroom door, a perfect statue of withheld rage and despair as they cross the scuffed-up floor and settle in front of the jukebox. She titters with laughter as he picks a song, like they’re sharing some kind of fucking inside joke. 

Trevor wants to pounce, tear the kid’s throat out with his teeth and get his first taste of cowboy blood. Trevor wants to see the life leave his eyes. Green, like hers, but dimmer. Duller. Trevor wants to hate her for not being able to read his mind and see that he wants her to tell this asshole to fuck off so they can go back to sitting shoulder to shoulder, where he can find some excuse to brush his fingers against her cheek, and Trevor wants to feel her lean into it.

He wants, he wants, he wants.

Trevor snaps his head away as though slapped. This guy, this fucking _ boy_, was able to do in seconds what Trevor hasn’t been able to muster up the nerve to do for a month. It was so easy for him. He saw an incredible woman at the bar alone and made up his mind to talk to her. Simple as that. It’s so fucking unfair.

And does she have to be wearing the dress Michael bought her? It makes him want to gnaw his own hands off, finger by finger, punish himself for being so fucking delusional.

The alcohol burns in Trevor’s gut, threatening to crawl its way back up his esophagus and make him throw it all up. He happens to catch Janet’s sympathetic look, which he can’t stomach either, so he just stares at his boots as he shuffles back to his barstool like a guilty fucking dog with its tail between its legs. This was such an awful, stupid idea. His flight jacket is draped over Catherine's now-empty seat.

Trevor swirls his glass and thinks about how he’d tear himself apart and rearrange the pieces to Catherine’s exact specifications (a service formerly offered only to his mother and, once upon a time, to Michael) if it meant never having to see her so much as look at another man.

Not a minute later, he hears Catherine shout.

“Fuck y- no! _ Fuck you!_”

He’s up at the sound of the first syllable, beyond ready to beat the cowpoke’s face to an unidentifiable pulp, only to find that Catherine’s already storming his way. She curls her fingers around his arm when they meet up.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here.” She glares over her shoulder before doing exactly that. Trevor sees the guy standing aghast, the grizzled old truckers and dirt-farmers snickering at his misfortune. Catherine’s already out in the parking lot, standing by the car before Trevor catches up.

“Whoa, whoa, wait,” he urges, grabbing for her and missing. “You gonna tell me what happened? Did-” His mouth twists at the corners as a horrifying possibility dawns on him - “Did he _ touch you?_”

She grimaces. “God! No, he didn’t touch me, he-”

A long moment passes in the quiet dark as she decides how to word it. Trevor observes what is almost certainly a drug deal going down in an unlit corner of the lot. The thought crosses his mind that Catherine isn’t safe here.

“Well?”

“He, uh-” Catherine cuts herself off with a sigh. “He said I should be thanking him for saving me from you. ‘That creepy old pervert’, I believe he dubbed you.”

She clearly isn’t expecting Trevor to burst out laughing. “Is that all?” he wheezes, supporting himself against the hood. “Fuck, I thought- That’s just about the tamest thing I’ve ever been called.”

Catherine huffs. “Yeah, well, _ I _ thought it was pretty mean.”

“Thanks for defendin’ my honor, sweet pea."

“Whatever,” she scoffs, turning to open the car door, but something catches her eye through the window. Her face goes as white as the palm she’s pressing against the glass. “I locked the fucking keys in the car.”

Catherine spent enough time around Niko to know what an elbow in that position means. She throws her hands up to still it and Trevor questions her with a raised brow.

"Come on, just leave it. We can walk home."

Trevor's attention hooks mightily on that last word. 

"It's at least a mile. And in those shoes?"

Catharine rolls her eyes, pulls at his arm. "Come _ on. _We already shouldn't have gone out. You want the cops poking their heads in too? I’ll call a tow truck on the way."

Predictably, she wants to be carried about 500 feet in, and, also predictably, she disappears into the bathroom the moment they reach the trailer and stays locked in there giving the hot water heater the test of its beleaguered lifetime.

Trevor’s reading that same issue of _ Classic Rides _ from four years ago, about an hour into Catherine’s extended self-care session, when he hears it.

_ Snip. _

There it is again. 

_ Snip, snip. _

He knocks at the flimsy bathroom door, hears Catherine jump and curse on the other side. His eyes zero in immediately on her hand when she shows her face to complain. 

“Oh, huh-uh,” Trevor admonishes. She jerks the scissors away when he makes to grab them. “Catherine, I’m not havin’ you bitch to me tomorrow about how I didn’t stop you from cuttin’ all your hair off while you were drunk.”

“I’m only a little tipsy,” she pouts.

“Oh, silly me. Do carry on.”

“I know what I’m doing. I’ve been trimming my own hair since college.”

Trevor’s brows knit skeptically, and Catherine adds, in a tone not unlike an indignant teenager, “I’ll clean up all the hair!”

He considers for a moment, arms crossed and taking up the whole doorway when he leans against it. “Fine, but on one condition.”

“You and your conditions.” Catherine sighs. “Come on, let’s hear it.”

“You trim mine too.” Trevor runs a hand over the back of his head, through the hair that's started to brush his collar. "It's gettin' a little mangy back there."

Her eyes practically take up her whole face, lit up the way a kid who's seeing fireworks for the first time might be. "Really?" 

"Why not.” He shrugs. “Letting a drunk girl cut my hair would be among the most innocuous of my terrible ideas." 

And that’s how Trevor ends up sitting in a chair on the kitchen linoleum, threadbare towel around his shoulders, watching little bits of hair float to the floor while they chat about whatever comes to mind. 

"Where'd you even learn how to do this?" he asks as she works. Her palms and fingers running over his scalp soothes and upsets him all at once.

"Well, on my rich and varied journey to 'find myself'-" she pulls her hands away and Trevor knows she's doing air quotes back there "-I tried cosmetology for a little while. But that shit's way too hard."

Trevor scoffs and feels the blunt edge of a scissor blade at his nape, cool and somehow comforting against his hot skin. "Harder than getting a Ph.D.?"

"Oh, you have no idea. I'll get three doctorates before I ever do another finger wave."

"And what, precisely, did you want to do with a doctorate in..._ugh._..criminal justice? Surely it wasn't babysitting rent-a-cops. You’re better than that."

Catherine snorts. "Well thanks for shitting all over my career, asshole. What kind of backhanded negging…?"

Trevor worries for a moment that he might've fucked up, but her tone is cheerful.

"Hey," he shrugs, and she chastises him for the movement, "that's what assholes do."

"Oh, and how about _ you, _ Mr. High-and-Mighty?" Catherine hands Trevor the scissors in exchange for the clippers he's been holding, along with the plastic attachment he never knew what to do with. "Did you always want to make a living abducting rent-a-cop babysitters?"

"No," he answers after hesitating a moment. The uncertainty in his voice surprises even himself. "I wanted to fly."

As she cleans up his hairline, Catherine finally hears the story about why Trevor never got to do that. Not under the Canadian flag, anyway.

"That _ witch!_" she cries when he's done, smacking his shoulder in outrage. Trevor flinches.

“Easy with the clippers there, boss.”

"And she had the nerve to call herself a counselor! Ohhh, if I could just- _ oh! _ What I wouldn’t give to tear her a new one!”

Trevor doesn't respond, but he does try his best to crack only a hint of a smile. He's made himself dangerously vulnerable, he knows. He's exposed his jugular to her, because he’s certain now that she'd never bite.

Catherine takes her time evening out his sideburns, enough that the conversation dies off naturally. This silence is different, though. Charged. She doesn't miss Trevor gripping his legs right above the knee, so hard that his fingers have gone white. So she debates with herself before deciding that she wants to push him a little, to see what happens. 

She brushes a fingertip along the shell of his ear under the guise of dusting away loose hair and watches his back and shoulders go instantly tight, tendons standing out attractively in his neck. Carefully, tentatively, she explores those tendons, the stiffness in the muscles underneath, until she’s massaging that stiffness from his shoulders and neither of them are daring to say a word. The haircut is long finished.

It takes Trevor a while, but he recognizes what she's humming in that smoky voice. _ Lovesong_, by The Cure. Because of fucking course it is. He slams his eyes shut and grits his teeth against a roiling, nauseating wave of what feels curiously, horribly like _ adoration. _

“Well, I stick by what I said,” Trevor says after a hearty throat-clearing, as though in response to something. “You’re wasted on the cops.”

“Ah, but it’s so much worse than that,” Catherine croons, grateful for the break in atmospheric pressure that was starting to resemble what it must feel like in a black hole. Her hands have stopped and now they just rest there, itching to taste more of Trevor but behaving themselves. “Technically, I work for the _ government _ now.”

“Cop-adjacent, then.” Trevor waves away the distinction, careful not to move so much that Catherine takes her hands away and the moment gets lodged in the past. He feels himself losing steam, awkward and- oh, fuck toeing the line! “I just...you’re the first person I’ve met in a long fuckin’ time who could do anything.”

He hears her, practically _ feels _ her hold her breath. Her hands don’t retract at all, they squeeze, and she sighs his name, voice weak and worn. “Oh, Trevor...that’s...that’s really sweet.”

“You know better than that, sweet pea. I’m just honest.”

A mere second of deliberation, and then, lo and behold, shock among shocks, as though his words called her to action, there it is again. Her lips at his neck. Directly below his left ear. His swallow tattoo. As quickly as though he imagined it, she has retracted from him fully, turning to clean up their mess. Slipping away from him again.

_ The Countdown! _

Trevor shoots up to his feet, eliciting a gasp, and he sees tears in Catherine’s eyes.

“Trevor, what’s-”

Time stands still and the world boils down to him coming face to face with her, literally and metaphorically, her fearful face thrown into shadow by him towering over her.

And god, the _ sound _ Catherine makes, the little fucking _ moan _, when Trevor tangles his fingers in the hair at the back of her head, by the roots, and tugs. Not enough to hurt her. He would never hurt her. Just enough to tip her chin up to him. She gathers the front of his shirt in her fists, breath short through her parted lips. No resistance whatsoever. He feels a shudder roll through her, feels it transfer to him. He feels his semi thickening out against his thigh, hot and insistent. He feels like he’s lost his mind.

_ The! Countdown! _

“Say it again,” he demands, voice deep and grating, beyond frantic.

“Say what?” Catherine’s voice cracks a little, husky like Trevor likes it. _ Loves _ it.

“My name.”

Even if she shoves him away, even if he’s just made her particular timer run out and she cuts him off forever, Trevor can still indulge himself in the sound of his name in her mouth, on her tongue, to jerk himself dry.

Her voice drops to a whisper. “Trevor.”

He can’t help the whine in his throat, the plea of a wounded animal begging to be put out of its misery. Catherine heeds the call.

She crushes her silky, supple lips to his scarred, cracked ones, her aim a little off and crooked at that, smudging her ruby red lipstick on the corner of his mouth. 

Trevor grabs hold of her before she can shy away, and keens low and loud against her mouth, weeks of maddening hunger expressed in one miserable, desperate sound. His arms bar her in against him and he can finally feel how every one of those curves conforms to him as though by design. She comes along willingly, throwing her arms up around his neck as he’s skimming his hands over every available surface, down her back, her ass, her thighs, scrambling and grasping, greedy and impatient. He takes advantage of her little gasps to push his way inside her mouth and god_ damn _ it is so warm and wet, so impossibly good against his searching tongue that there’s a real possibility he will come in his pants just from the sensation. 

They part for a shallow breath, briefly, torturously. Catherine opens her heavy eyes, trailing up Trevor’s face, languidly wandering the geography of him, chin to lips to nose to eyes. “_God, _ Trevor.” Her tongue slips out to wet her lips as if trying to retain the taste of him and Trevor groans in response.

When they clash again, Trevor doesn’t know what to do with himself, with his awkward, lanky body, his hands scurrying wildly, eventually settling for lifting Catherine up by the hips. She hooks her legs around him too fast, tearing her tight skirt right up the middle. She’s kissing Trevor like his own breath sustains her. He almost loses his footing on his way over to the table, the only passably clean surface in sight, barely able to control hips that want to buck, want to rut into her inner thigh. 

Trevor bumps into the flimsy table, hard enough to leave bruises on his thighs, all his coordination focused on giving as good as he gets; with how ardently Catherine’s attacking his mouth, that’s no small feat. He sits her there on the edge and yanks her hips to him, finally getting some vestige of divine contact between their groins, exhaling harshly as he shoves her skirt (or what’s left of it) up around her waist for access. 

Her cries are the only sounds he ever wants to hear again, high and harsh as he holds her in place and grinds into her, the stiffness of his jeans contrasting fucking incredibly with the heat, the exquisite softness between her legs. Catherine props herself up on her elbows and tightens those legs around him, straining her black garter belt to its limits, crossing her ankles across Trevor’s ass to keep him there.

Catherine closes a hand over Trevor’s when he pulls away and fishes a condom out of his wallet, and she moves his fingertips to feel a small incision in her forearm, underneath the image of a flower - one of countless many. Trevor’s never seen gold ink in a tattoo before. 

“Implant,” she explains.

Trevor flounders. The thought of taking her raw makes him salivate. “I- uh- I, I ain’t been...tested...in a while…” He trails off, still not used to shame and how sick it makes him feel. But it could poison him to slow, painful death for all he cares. He will never hurt her.

Catherine considers, nods, runs comforting hands up his forearms, down to his fingers where they rest on her hips, breaking him out in goosebumps and whisking away his shame in an instant. Then she’s prying his belt away, shoving his briefs down, rolling the condom on, comprising an image that Trevor knows will be burned into his mind like a brand.

There will be time to linger and explore and tease, but not now. Trevor has to look away, can’t bear to watch his cock throbbing and slicking against her glistening folds, chewing his lip until he tastes blood as she sighs for him. Catherine squeaks when he wrenches her panties to the side and lines himself up, digs her nails into his arms in anticipation as he works her with his tip, dipping in only slightly. Divine torture. The story of the saint echoes distantly in his delirious mind.

“Trevor. _ Move._”

He hisses. “Hold _ on_, I need- I-”

“_Trevor._”

He leans down, holds her tight to his chest, buries his face in the satin skin of her neck, kisses his way up her jawline.

“Tell me…I need you to tell me that you, that you want this,” he pants in her ear, no longer capable of shame. “Tell me you’re mine, baby.”

“I’m- _ hah- _ I’m all yours, Trevor, oh god, _ please- _”

Trevor obliges. He starts to push, his cock giving a mighty throb at how fucking wet she is for him, all for him, only for him-

Catherine’s hand flies up to her mouth and that makes him jump and pull away on instinct. She looks surprised, almost...almost scared. If he wasn’t hilt-deep in her, he’s pretty sure his erection would collapse like a faulty bridge. Trevor puts a hand to her cheek, runs his thumb along the bone.

“Cath- hey, talk to me, darlin'.”

“Keep going,” she breathes between her trembling fingers, so emphatically that Trevor has to clench his teeth and summon his mightiest ‘don’t come yet’ image. 

“Oh, fuck, yes _ ma’am- _”

Trevor draws himself out to the red, leaking tip and barely keeps from ramming right back in. White-knuckled, he grips the table and lets loose a string of obscenities as he wills himself to get moving. His belt buckle clanks fiercely against it in response to his frantic rhythm, and cups and cans clatter and roll. Catherine arcs herself and the angle is destroying his ability to keep it together until he looks up and sees that she’s covered her mouth again, quieting herself.

“Oh no, nope, you are _ not _ hiding those sounds from me.” Trevor grips her wrists in his trembling fingers, forces her arms over her head with one hand and anchors himself against her shoulder with the other. He gets exactly what he wants: Catherine groaning and yelping unrestrained, going staccato with every thrust. And every thrust shoves them closer to the yawning, jagged edge with a force like gravity.

Trevor is slotted perfectly, relentlessly against the cluster of nerves at the top of her walls, sending her thighs into tight spasms that seem to please him, considering the way he’s pawing at them. And when he grabs her none too tenderly, lifts her legs up and apart so he can see everything, it all tumbles together along with his sounds and the smell of his soap and the steel of his hands behind her knees and his contorted, sweat-slicked face. Trevor tears the world out from under her and she comes long and hard, his name stumbling from her swollen, red-smudged lips. The entire time, he looks down at her like one might a saint in the flesh, in reverence that approaches worship.

“Goddammit. _ Fuck- _ ” he grits through his teeth. His eyes roll back and he stands stock straight, every cell committed to not blowing his load at the sight of, the thought of, making her come. “Fuck _ me. _ I wanted this to last. I wanted to go all fuckin’ night.”

“We can, just-” Catherine sits up so she can press close to him in the torrid space between them, looking up at him beneath dark lashes. Trevor buckles into her embrace, disjointed hands snatching at her hips, ramming into her artlessly, chasing release. “-come for me, Trevor oh_ god _comeformebaby-”

Trevor never followed an order so gladly in his life. He comes inside her with a growl that escalates to a prayer - “_Oh, Catherine, god, christ-!_” - which cracks at the end. 

They don’t go all night. They hold each other in the shower like they’ve been reunited after years of absence, neither feeling the need to speak a word. Yawning, they tangle up in one another in Trevor’s bed like separating will do them in, and Trevor strokes her hair long after she’s fallen asleep on his chest. 

He’s fucked so many. Not in a boastful way; he doesn’t remember the majority, either through sheer force of will or by the merciful haze of inebriation. He's paid, coerced, and convinced his way into countless other beds (and against countless other walls, alleys, car seats…). But this, with her...it defies that kind of crude categorization. It’s an insult to the woman whose breath is fanning over his collarbones to even consider her in comparison to anything else.

As usual, Trevor isn’t thinking about the future. For once, he isn’t thinking about the past.

\--

It’s a little after four in the morning when Trevor’s phone lights up his room and trills him out of a frankly absurd depth of sleep. He slaps around for it until he remembers he’s not alone. Catherine is right where she was when she first fell asleep, where she was when Trevor fell asleep a couple of hours later, with the addition of a nice puddle of drool. 

She sighs and shifts away from him, turning to the other edge of the bed, when he grabs the phone to see who has the nerve to text him before noon. Michael, of course. Trevor reaches over and trails his fingertips down Catherine’s back and up again, letting himself get lost in it and in reminiscing about the things they did just hours ago. He’s nearly fallen back asleep, phone still in hand, when it buzzes again.

🐍**Michael** 🐍 ** | 4:17 AM**

get over here asap

  
  


🐍**Michael** 🐍 ** | 4:22 AM**

her boyfriend is here

  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I appreciate each and every person who takes time to read my incoherent ramblings.
> 
> If you need more GTA V boys in your life, I also have an [x reader story](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21277751/chapters/50663795) starring all three of our favorite lads.
> 
> Thank you again!!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst! 
> 
> Horniness! 
> 
> Jealousy! 
> 
> Existential dread! 
> 
> All contained in <strike>my life</strike> this here Chapter 10 update!

One of the memories Niko revisits most, especially when he’s deep in the throes of the isolation that comes with laying low, is from right before things really started to spiral out of control for him. 

If it were a photograph, it would be crinkled around the edges, but the colors wouldn’t be faded, like they are in the photo of his mother that Niko keeps in his wallet. There would be technicolor skies and red lips, enough to distract him for the moment, remind him that there was a time when he had good things in his life.

Charge Island wasn’t an ideal meeting spot, which was precisely what made it so ideal. The smells of water treatment and the Humboldt River were enough to drive away all but those who were paid to deal with it all day. It wasn’t so bad over on the neglected little baseball field, where Niko stood waiting for the tiny, and good god, _ nosy _ woman he’d agreed to meet there. As for why he agreed, he’d never be quite sure.

For reasons that escaped his understanding, his friends had taken to calling her Saint Catherine. ‘Cath’ was much more agreeable to his tongue. ‘Cathy’, if he wanted to get a rise out of her. He smiled at just the thought. He wasn’t sure what the English equivalent would be, but his native language would dub her _ derište _\- a spoiled child.

Niko checked his watch again, sighed, watched his breath crystallize and catch the light of sunrise. Now and sunset were the only two occasions this grim city saw fit to wear any colors besides funereal grey. And how brilliant those pinks and purples shone against the imposing steel skeleton of the East Borough Bridge - Niko took a moment to remind himself that he was a free man, the most free he’d ever been, and he almost didn't mind how long he'd been waiting in the cold. 

“You’re late,” Niko chided when Catherine pulled up alongside him, blasting that punk nonsense she liked, and hopped out. He clicked his tongue at her, but she was unfazed. “What, my time don’t mean nothing to you?”

Catherine poked her tongue out before revealing what she had hidden behind her back. “I’m not sorry - there was already a line at Drusilla’s.” 

Niko took the to-go cup of cappuccino she offered him, and the brush of her fingers combined with the scalding paper was a soothing sensation he would recall for years to come. They leaned on the rusting hood of her silver Blista, as they often did when they met like this, and settled in to watch the sun cast its blazing rays over the horizon to filter through the rising steam of their coffee.

“You went to Drusilla’s?” Niko asked after his first sip, head cocked.

“What?” Catherine had set down her cup and was digging around in a brown paper bag. She shot him a look that was probably meant to be innocent but one which Packie once said wouldn’t have looked out of place tormenting Saint Anthony in the desert. “Oh, you mean because it’s Ray Boccino’s place?”

Despite his best efforts, Niko went stiff, and Catherine knew her hunch was right.

“See? You don’t even have to tell me this stuff,” she said around a mouthful of biscotti. “I’m _ that _good.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, an expression she’d elicited from him countless times. “How’d you know I work with Ray?”

“Because you just told me.” Catherine gestured at Niko with the biscuit. “And because, two days ago you made a joke about how I shouldn’t stay at the Majestic Hotel, right before a bunch of Jewish Mob guys_, known enemies of Ray Boccino, _ got shot to death in the penthouse of - wait for it - that exact same hotel. If you don't work with him directly, you're at least in his orbit.”

She must have sensed Niko’s temper rising, because she rolled her eyes and added, “Down, boy. Don’t get all worked up about it. This is all public knowledge, y’know. Newspapers? TV?” She shook her head as she dunked the biscuit into her coffee. “You tough guys think you’re so sneaky. Anyone with a pair of working eyes who gives half a shit can see the patterns.”

For this transgression, but especially for her cockiness, Niko nabbed her biscotti and scarfed it down amid her whines of protest. Between licking the crumbs from his fingers with relish, he taunted, “Someday, that smart mouth of yours is going to get you into trouble, and I won’t be around to stop it.”

“That’s why we meet at the asscrack of dawn on deserted industrial islands, isn’t it? To _ avoid _ the trouble?”

Catherine produced another biscotti from the bag - presumably Niko's - and held it away from him so she could devour it as inelegantly as possible. 

“So, where’s your notepad?” He asked, idly scuffing his shoe in the dew-slick grass. “No writing down everything I say today?”

“Yeah, well, I haven’t, um…” She hesitated. “I haven’t really been working on the dissertation all that much.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’ve just been...hanging around my apartment. I have a progress meeting with my supervisor next week and I basically have nothing to show for it.”

“What? What happened?” Niko balked, then muttered, “I didn’t know you were capable of minding your own business.”

“Yeah, well.” She crinkled her nose at him. “After...that _ thing _ with my boss, you know, that thing where you killed him and about fifteen security guards, I got kind of...disillusioned, you know?”

“‘Dis-ill-u-sion’?” Niko absolutely _ detested _ feeling clueless, but it was safe to ask her.

“Oh, uh.” Catherine thought a moment. “Like when something isn’t the way you thought it would be.”

“Disillusioned,” he tried again, and the concept was not lost on him. Not by a long shot. “Something like..._razočaran._”

“_Ra-zo-cha-ran._” She snapped her fingers. “Shoot, I didn’t bring my notepad...text it to me?”

Niko got to work on that while Catherine continued, babbling in that way she always did when she got too nervous, talking with her hands, “Well anyway, I thought, if the goddamn _ police commissioner _ puts out hits on people just for rubbing him the wrong way, then what’s my shitty little dissertation gonna do? Get me a shitty little degree. Just words on paper. And then what? Nothing changes. Congratulations, I wasted years of my life on something that doesn’t even help anyone.”

Niko crossed his arms and nodded sagely. Catherine grinned, chin resting on her knees. “Uh-oh. Are you about to drop some old-guy wisdom on me?”

“This is what happens when you are so passionate about everything all of the time, _ lekar _. You become tired and bitter."

“Okay, so,‘care less’. Thank you, mister stoic masculine Serbian man.” She snorted and tucked her knees to her chest, hugging them. “If I do that, if I act all tough and apathetic, does that set me down the path that leads to being a hired assassin for corrupt pieces of shit?"

Niko bristled. “Cath, you know what I am. I have never hidden that from you.”

“No, I...I guess not.” There was something a bit sad tingeing the corners of her mouth. “Sometimes I don’t know whether to be grateful to you or angry at myself about that.” 

“Whichever it is, you are not allowed to be...disillusioned with me.” Niko nudged her, and she smiled. It was small, but it was there. “You know these things, Francis, Ray, the Pegorinos, and you stick around anyway.”

Right then, Catherine fixed him with a look he could not describe, in either of the languages he knew. The breeze loosened strands of dark hair to dance across her dawn-painted face, orange streetlights reflected in her immense eyes. It was one of those moments, one of the few he’d ever encountered, a moment that was engulfed in a significance that bordered on supernatural. The kind of moment that makes a man scared that nothing else will live up to it.

She didn’t blink when she said, “I’d follow you to the ends of the earth, Niko. I think...I think you know that already.” Then, quickly, as though trying to wave it away, “Also, the _ Pegorinos? _ What-”

In a rustle of leaves and snap of twigs, a man emerged from the trees a few hundred feet across the field with a dog in tow. 

Niko was sure, with the swiftness that comes with experience, that something was not right. 

Even under the ballcap and sunglasses, in the dim light of morning, Niko knew right away that he’d seen this man just days before, in Jimmy Pegorino’s office. Not Jimmy’s right-hand man, but the younger one, the bodyguard. Antonio or something.

Niko’s fingers closed vice-tight around Catherine’s arm when she moved, babbling and baby-talking, to cross the field and pet the dog. He saw her whirl on him, felt her try to jerk away, but the smiling man had Niko’s utmost attention, and that calmed her into stillness. The world became deathly silent for him in that second, his ears ringing the way they had so many times during the war. 

A moment passed in which Niko thought he might have gotten the wrong idea, until the man flicked his hand out in a gesture that Niko recognized; a sort of underhanded devil-horns, in heavy use among the Italian mobsters that Niko was getting fast entangled with. The message was clear: _ stop talking, or else. _

That was the day Niko realized that Jimmy Pegorino was keeping tabs on him. 

That was the day Niko realized he was going to have to let her go.

\--

Trevor has always had an antagonistic relationship with sleep. He doesn’t know how to do it without drugs, blunt force trauma, or just going so long that he passes out. 

It used to get him in trouble as a kid; Trevor's mom delighted in regaling him (and anyone else who would listen) with exaggerated, sometimes outright fabricated, tales of how much of a pain in the ass Trevor was come nightfall, from the night he was first brought home from the hospital to the night he slammed his mother’s front door closed for the last time. He stopped chasing the myth of eight hours long ago.

Last night, though, sleep came about as naturally as Trevor imagines it's supposed to. This morning, waking up comes even easier.

Like always, Trevor watches her.

He watches her scoot to the edge of the bed and stretch, her untamed dark hair cascading down her bare back, sunlight catching in the dimples and ridges. There are so many flowers, all over her incredible body, that he thinks he may never actually lay eyes on them all. He watches the search for her panties, then the process of getting them on: one leg, stumble, curse, other leg. Watches her scrounge for a shirt until she decides on a faded classic that's at least as old as she is - the one with the little cartoon prop plane and the slogan _ Getting High Is Part of My Job Description! _ (And when she turns to see him propped up on his elbows, he watches her pounce on him, kiss him deeply, whimper into his mouth when he holds her arms in place and grinds up against her until she insists she’s so hungry that he's going to make her pass out.) 

Trevor watches her brim with confidence on the drive to the diner, switching gears like a pro now, even with his hand resting on hers atop the gear shift. (He thinks about messing with her, jerking her hand around at least once, but contains himself.) He watches her compliment the waitress on her eyeshadow, or eyeliner, or something, and sees the beginnings of a friendship that has wanted to exist since the morning the two of them first came here together. Watches her drill through the massive stack of pancakes she always orders like a boring machine through a mountain, swearing she’ll finish them this time and running out of steam about halfway through, as always. 

She still has his shirt on, tucked messily into those treacherous denim shorts. He used to be infatuated, but now he thinks he might be obsessed.

Nothing’s changed. Everything's different, but nothing's changed. 

The realization doesn’t hit him or crush him, as most have done. Nothing so violent. Instead it settles around him, wraps him in all the calming assurance of a weighted blanket. 

When the waitress sees their hands meet in the middle of the table, fingers linked, it’s the waitress who can’t suppress a smile this time this time, and it’s dazzling, like she just witnessed the most amazing magic trick.

As they’re leaving, she taps Trevor on the shoulder. He turns to see her gesturing between him and Catherine, who’s waiting ahead, holding the door for him and waving for him to hurry. 

“I was wondering when this was gonna happen,” the waitress says, coquettish.

“You and me both, sister.”

They leave the diner in the dust and race home with devious intentions, Trevor's hand skating further and further up her thigh, squeezing, testing and finding no limits, no boundaries. They hardly make it to the front door before he has Catherine pinned against it from behind, holding her delicate jaw in place (careful, careful, his hand wraps so easily around her neck) so he can raze the base of her skull with his teeth and feel her shiver and hear her squeak. 

She stutters his name and the way she squirms at his touch, so completely at his mercy, has him too captivated to notice his phone buzzing in his pocket until it’s stopped. That call could have contained the secret to everlasting happiness and it still would have been firmly at the bottom of his list of priorities at the moment. In fact, everything other than this has been swept off the list entirely, all five of his senses locked and chained to her.

Trevor’s dying to take her again. He wants, no, _ needs _ to have her as many times as she’ll let him, prove to himself that this is indeed happening.

"I kinda wanna fuck you until you can't take any more," he breathes against the space between her quivering shoulders. "What do you have to say about that, darlin'?"

Catherine braces herself against the door, chin dropped to her chest, Trevor's eager hands snaking under her shirt - _ his _ shirt, rather. "Oh god, Trevor, you better."

They've stumbled into the dusty darkness of the trailer, connected at the mouth and anywhere else their insatiable bodies can touch, when Trevor's phone rings again. Seeing Michael’s name has him half soft, but Catherine bringing the fingertips of his free hand to her silken lips solves that problem.

She nibbles the pad of his thumb, presses a red-stained kiss to it, then - father, son and holy ghost - she opens up, peering up through those dark locks, and takes it into her mouth. 

Trevor wants to close his eyes, really lose himself, but he does not want to miss one fucking second of this. Especially not with the way Catherine's swirling her tongue around the head- er, fingertip. He's so hard he could shatter. 

Michael will not be deterred, however, and Trevor rounds up enough lust-drunk brain cells to wonder why. He Does Not Miss the string of saliva that connects them when Catherine pulls away to whine, “You’re checking your phone right _ now? _”

Trevor huffs, anger and arousal battling it out in his clouded mind. “Keep suckin’, sugar. Show me that pretty pink tongue.” 

She does.

Trevor should have just ignored it. He should have tossed the phone somewhere and let it get lost while he buried himself in her. Now he’s got to stand here, getting more than half soft, and let the awful recollection pierce him, comforting as an iron maiden. 

_ Her boyfriend is here. _

His finger hovers over the text in question when the screen lights up with another of Michael’s calls; Trevor recoils and rejects it, but the ringing starts up again right away, and he knows now that Michael is in one of his Moods. If Trevor doesn’t answer, Michael will only resort to more and more desperate measures until he gets what he wants. Pissbaby.

Catherine frowns. “Trevor, who’s-”

“Oh, for fuck's- Don’t worry about it. This’ll only take a second.” 

The instant Trevor answers, Michael’s irritation is palpable.

“_Where the fuck’ve you been?_”

The hard line of Trevor’s mouth goes soft when Catherine draws his fingers from her mouth and runs them down the long line of her neck, over her collarbones, to the swell of her tits, and squeezes. Oh, she’s going to fucking _ get it. _

“Little busy,” he manages.

“_‘Busy’- _ well have your fuckin’ secretary cancel your appointments, T, this is serious. Bellic’s-” 

Trevor barely manages to turn the volume down and pull away, storming off toward the kitchen.

“-in LS and he’s actin’ real fuckin’ weird. I don’t buy what he’s sellin’, the way he just showed up outta the clear blue. Smells like bullshit. I need _ you _ here in case he tries anything. I already called Frank and he’s on his way. I figure Catherine can-”

“Yeah al_right_, _ je_sus,” Trevor growls, jaw tight. “Be there in a couple hours. But don’t invite that fuckin’ McReary asshole, huh, Mikey? We gotta do this, uh... _ unbiased._”

Trevor doesn’t wait for a response, just hangs up and tosses the phone none too delicately onto the counter, rifling his hands through his hair.

“Work stuff?” Catherine pipes up from across the room.

“Duty fuckin’ calls.” He turns to see her edging closer.

“In LS?”

“Right again, detective.”

She’s started wringing her hands, probably sensing the seething rage emanating from him. Trevor reaches out and takes both hands in his, rubs her palms with his thumbs to reassure her, because apparently reassuring is something Trevor does now. “Are you taking the Bodhi? I gotta head into LS anyway. It'd be nice to ride together.”

Birdsong and passing engines drift in through the open door as Trevor thinks on this, wonders how much she heard. "And where exactly d’you think _ you’re _ goin'?"

"You remember that security guard I told you about? Pete? He invited me over for dinner with him and his wife tonight. They live kinda close to where I used to in El Burro. It'll just take me a minute to get ready and-”

“I ain’t waitin’ around for you to pretty up,” Trevor grunts, bending over to pick up his keys from where he must have dropped them during their fevered almost-fuck. He growls under his breath. Goddamn Michael. Goddamn Bellic. May they be cursed with eternal blue balls.

“Fair enough. I’ll just take the Ruiner, then,” Catherine says with a shrug. She makes for the bathroom, where she's been keeping all her girly shit.

“Oh, you will, huh?” Trevor crosses his arms, blood rising again now that she isn’t touching him. “By yourself. In LS. I’m not sure even _ I _ could think of many worse ideas.”

“So give me a ride, then,” she bargains, turning back to him, coming close and wrapping her arms around his neck. Instant calm. “Come on, Trev. It’s long past over. If anyone was coming for me, they’d’ve found me weeks ago. We aren’t exactly lying low here.” 

Trevor is reminded of a favorite phrase of Franklin's as he sighs his resignation: _ fuck my life. _

\--

The weight of Catherine’s head on his shoulder, the rasp of her laugh resonating in his chest, is a relief, despite her hair occasionally whipping him in the face. It would be enough to put Trevor right to sleep if they weren’t flying down the GOH - making just as good time in the Bodhi as they did in the helicopter, with the way he’s driving. 

Catherine must have seen the way Trevor gnawed his knuckle until it bled, because she pulls it down and away from him, softly chiding, and holds it in her lap. He feels all signs of tension drain from his face when he catches her examining him with big, curious eyes as he drives. She’s wearing his gold-tinged aviators to protect from the harsh noon sun, too big for her so they slip down her nose. 

"Is this okay?" 

"More than fucking okay, sweet pea."

Catherine seems to be just as soothed by tracing Trevor’s tattoos as Trevor is, but desperation still bubbles in his chest like a geyser, threatening to crack him open with the force of fifty thousand conflicting emotions, all of which are guaran-fucking-teed to scare her away if he lets them out.

Instead he thinks about how she didn’t even have to _ do _ anything for him to agree to this ill-advised excursion - bat her lashes, pout, nothing. Just being there was enough to make his walls crumble, for better or worse. The bubble would have to burst sooner or later, Trevor knew, and Trevor would have to let her back into the real world. Her world of taxable income, interdepartmental memos, and other things strictly non-Trevor-related. She’s not wearing his shirt anymore, either.

Los Santos symbolizes a great many unpleasant things for him, things even more unpleasant than Trevor considers himself to be, but right now none is so ominous as the distance it could restore between them. 

_Just fucking tell her, you coward, _he berates himself._ Tell her the slav's in town. It’s that fucking easy. Tell her you'll fucking expire on the spot if you have to watch them so much as __see__ each other_. _Tell her you’ll rip and tear and shred the first thing she points you to if she just promises not to go anywhere, with anyone, ever-_

“So what’s got Michael’s stripey boxers in a twist all of a sudden?”

Trevor cannot believe he is about to kick this off (whatever “this” is) by fucking _ lying _ to her.

“Not too sure. He wasn’t real specific.” 

Okay, so it isn’t technically _ completely _ a lie.

Catherine waggles her eyebrows at him racily. “Mexico business?”

Trevor can't maintain his sullen face when he replies, “Will you- no. No, it isn’t about Mexico.” 

Definitely not a lie.

“When are you leaving, anyway?” Catherine’s voice goes small enough that he has trouble hearing it over the engine and racing wind. 

Trevor’s just glad that she’s distracted herself from asking too many questions. About _ one _ of his shady operations, anyway. “Next weekend.”

“You still dead set against me tagging along? Even if I promise to stay out of the way?” Catherine dots her finger along the permanent ‘FUCK’ embedded in Trevor’s scarred knuckles, and he sees her fond little smile. “You never know, there could be some need for a ridiculously out of shape and very squeamish meat shield on the team.” 

Trevor pauses way too long, totally betraying the fact that he might be almost, kind of, considering it. It would be more than good to get the hell away from here with her. Away from this tacky city and its Serbian ex-flames. And if it’ll keep her from thinking too much about why he’s racing them both back to Los Santos, then... 

The longer he waits, the higher her eyebrows go up her forehead, until they’ve basically disappeared into her hairline, and Trevor can’t help that he loves teasing her. The thought alone brings back extremely distracting memories of Catherine outright _ begging _ him to fuck her last night, and who could possibly stand strong in the face of such powerful persuasion?

“It’s _ not _ a yes,” Trevor prefaces, in an effort to at least _ look _ like he’s still got _ some _ control over anything involving her. It doesn’t matter anyway. She’s already doing a little victory dance and nuzzling into his shoulder.

Nothing’s changed.

\--

God, Niko looks like shit. And Packie’s never been delicate where other people's feelings are involved.

“Christ, man, you always had that haggard look about ya, but I always assumed it was just part’a growin’ up in fuckin’ squalor with nothin’ but vodka an’ sheep milk to sustain ya.” He nudges Niko none too gently in the ribs, eliciting a cough. “I hardly recognize ya. Eat a burger, get some iron in your diet, willya?”

Niko tosses his dart and misses the board entirely. Packie snorts into his beer and for the first time tonight, his friend meets his eye.

“‘Haggard’, wow, you been playing in the dictionary while I been gone?”

“The thesaurus,” Packie laughs, relieved. “Hey, at least people can fuckin’ understand _ me _ when _ I _talk, comrade.”

A corner of Niko’s mouth quirks up when his friend does a stiff salute. “Missed you too, Packie.”

Packie returns the smile, briefly, before downing half his foamy beer in one swallow. He gestures at Niko with the glass, one brow raised. “I don’t think Saint Catherine’s gonna be happy when she sees the state’a ya. For multiple reasons.”

It’s the first time they’ve openly mentioned her, the five-foot-four elephant in the room, and it puts a freeze on things. Niko’s good at hiding, but not from Packie. Running heists, fleeing for your life side by side, it all has a way of making a man known to you.

“You, uh...you talked with her?”

It’s Packie’s turn, and he finds it much easier to speak when he’s concentrating on the dartboard. “Yeesh, _ have _ I. Just about every day for the last month I hadda listen to her yap about all that granny shit she likes, flowers, kittens, god only knows what the fuck else.” He misses the bullseye by millimeters, and it’s Niko’s turn to snicker. Packie crosses his arms, pinches the bridge of his nose. “Like she ain’t got a care in the world, that broad.”

Packie sees the distant past behind Niko’s tired eyes, sees him relive and regret in the span of a few seconds. People like them could drown in oceans worth of their own self-inflicted suffering.

“I wish she _ didn’t,_” Niko grumbles, rubbing the back of his head. “I wish I-”

“Ah, stow it. I don’t need your self-flagellatin’. I got enough Catholic fuckin’ guilt, pal.”

“Yeah, alright,” Niko relents. Five seconds. Ten seconds. “How...how is she?”

Packie looks at him sidelong. “I dunno, man. Good girl, as always.”

“As always,” Niko repeats, and the regret is still there, but maybe a little mellower. He even pumps his fist a little when he makes it twenty points closer to winning.

“Listen, man, why don’t you just ask ‘er yourself?”

Predictably, Niko goes silent, turns his head away, and there are new scars on the back of his short-shorn head. Packie rolls his eyes but doesn’t press the issue further. Christ. Niko and Catherine have always been just hopeless with each other, and that isn’t going to change. There’s only so much Packie can do.

“How is your mother?” Niko asks after a bit.

“Dead. Finally. How’s yours?”

“I don’t know,” Niko shrugs. “Sad, probably. I haven't talked to her in a while.”

“Well, well, well, you ain’t just been hidin’ from your friends, then, huh? Glad to know we ain’t special.”

There's a ghost of a grin, but it comes out wrong, weary, and Packie swallows when he sees how many more lines Niko has under his eyes than he used to. Packie feels pretty saintly himself when he resists the urge to make fun of him for it.

“Look at us, huh? The Irish-Serbian Alliance, back in business." Packie claps an arm across Niko's shoulders and shakes him around some. "You wanna hit a payday loan place on our way back? Convenience store? Relive the good old days?"

"Yeah," Niko chuckles, and it seems genuine. He ducks out from under Packie's grasp and heads off for a refill. "It's a shame we didn't know they were the good old days when we were living them."

Packie watches Niko go and considers rearranging the dartboard before he gets back. True, they’re doing the same shit - drinking and goofing off - that they used to do on the east coast. But Packie knows that too much time has passed for things to be the way they used to be.

When Niko returns, empty-handed, he finds Packie putting on his jacket.

“Sorry to cut it short, bro, but duty calls. Gotta meet up with the crew.”

Niko nods. “Yeah, he called me too. Good thing we rode together, I guess.”

The air is cooler outside the packed, noisy bar, and Packie breathes in a lungful, not minding the burnt rubber and spilled diesel.

“She’s probably gonna be there, you know that, right?” Packie ventures when they're settled in his car. He takes advantage of the silence to add, “Gotta try not to jizz your pants when she walks in, man."

Niko doesn't laugh, just runs his hand over his five o’clock shadow, which verges as close to a beard as Packie's ever seen on him. He'd never admit it, but this all reminds him of right after Kate died, and that worries him.

Yeah, Niko looks like shit. Older, sadder. But then, so does Packie. 

"Come on, man, drive."

"You got it."

Nothing's changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, my brain sat me down earlier this month and revealed to me that I could....post shorter chapters....and update more often.....
> 
> If you're still keeping up with this story (which, god bless you I mean honestly), what do you think about shorter, more frequent updates? Say, ten or so pages every two weeks? I love posting giant chapters but it just (as I'm sure you've noticed) takes so damn long. Please give me your thoughts!!


	11. Chapter 11

Idling outside the quaint little house with its cheery storybook windows and impeccable flower beds, Catherine catches Trevor sneering up at it, like it personally wronged him.

“Only house on the street ain’t got bars in the windows,” he observes, sweeping a finger down the row of ramshackle buildings on either side.

Catherine unbuckles her seatbelt and pries the door handle - extra hard because it sticks. “Maybe because the offspring of Andre the Giant and Lou Ferrigno lives here?”

“Or maybe…” Trevor brings the sweeping finger to rest at his temple, a gleam in his eye. “They ain’t had the fear’a god put in ‘em yet.”

Catherine shoots him a flat look and a warning. “Behave yourself.” She drops to the asphalt, closes the door and leans on it, barely tall enough for her head to pop up over the side, even in heels. “I see you skulking around here before you’re supposed to and I’ll call the cops myself.”

“Well, I _ neva!_” Trevor cries in his posh English accent, hand to his chest. Catherine rolls her eyes and turns away, smiling. “Ay! Ain’t you forgettin’ somethin’?”

He points to the ground on his side of the truck, and Catherine complies, curious. Trevor raises his hips off the seat so he can lean over easier, and pulls her to her tiptoes by the sides of her face into an open kiss that leaves her throat dry when he pulls back a little.

“I- I just didn’t know if it was-”

“What did I say? More than fucking okay.”

Trevor’s lips, now stained red, curl up smug as a cat as he rolls his tongue over them. Tease. He sits up with a satisfied sound and drapes an arm casually over his door. “Save room for dessert, sweet pea.”

“Ugh,” Catherine complains over the pounding in her ears, feet now firmly on the ground. “You’re the worst. The worst boy who ever existed.”

“Oh, by far.”

She can still hear him chuckling deep in his throat halfway up the driveway.

“Sheesh, boss, never figured you for the romantic type,” Pete says when he opens the screen door for his guest, letting a cozy bar of light splash out onto the lawn. Catherine looks over her shoulder as Pete raises a hand to give a stiff wave (to which Trevor just smirks and peels out).

Catherine watches him go with a shake of her head and, yes, she'll admit it, a little pang of sadness. Pete claps a massive hand on her shoulder, engulfing it and startling her out of her wits. He’d been saying something that she didn’t catch. 

Catherine admonishes herself to be in the moment and tries very hard not to remember that kiss. She hopes Trevor is prepared for what’s coming to him once she gets him alone again.

“Don’t start with that ‘boss’ stuff, old man,” she chides, ducking under the tree trunk of an arm that holds open the door for her. “It’s been months, and I didn’t like it even when I _ was _ your boss.”

“Sorry, boss.”

Crossing the threshold into the little house is like stepping into another world after all the time she’s spent exclusively with Trevor, exclusively in Sandy Shores, exclusively in his claustrophobic trailer. It’s warm, bright, smells great, and...is a good deal louder than she expected. 

“Sorry,” Pete grumbles again when Catherine shoots him an accusatory glance. “Nan insisted on making it a neighborhood affair.”

“As long as I’m not the only one who showed up empty-handed.”

Pete’s frazzled wife scurries her way around the kitchen, the very picture of midcentury values in her dress and apron. Kind, narrow face and bobbed silver hair, just as Catherine remembers. 

“Catherine Rowan!” Nan calls when they appear, pulling off her scorched oven mitts and gathering her in for a tight hug and a peck on the cheek. She holds Catherine at arms’ length and beams. “Gosh, you’re just as stunning as always, hon.”

The oven chirps nervously and Nan curses, waving away the smoke that pours out of it and coughing. Catherine tries to help, but gets shooed into the living room instead, where a cozy house party is in full swing. Neighbors, every age and color under the sun, stand and sit around, drinks in hand, gabbing and laughing with inoffensive musical accompaniment provided by Dean Martin via some unseen speakers somewhere. It’s like something off a Christmas card, despite it being late July.

Dean gives up the spotlight to Patsy Cline, who warbles about being back in her baby’s arms as Catherine laughs to herself, thinking of the last house party she was at. Unless they have some dark secrets, she can't imagine these normal-looking folks popping beer caps off with the table edge and then doing rails off the same. The same table where Catherine later had Trevor between her legs and okay it’s time to stop thinking about that. 

Someone squeals and stands from the crowded sofa. “Ohmygod, Cathy, hi!” Catherine tries to remember the young woman’s name, but Pete rescues her.

“Boss, you remember my youngest, Hannah.”

Before Catherine can pretend to agree, Hannah is bounding toward her with a baby in her arms.

“And this is Levi! Levi, say hello to Miss Cathy!” Hannah waves the unimpressed baby’s stubby fingers and gives a high-pitched “Hellooooo!”

Catherine’s never considered herself particularly maternal, preferring to appreciate babies from a distance, but this one reaches for her all the same, babbling and cooing as he flexes his pudgy little fists. Meaning to decline, she looks up at Hannah, whose eyes are positively sparkling with enthusiasm and that underlying hint of madness that all new mothers have. As soon as the kid hits Catherine’s arms, Hannah lets out a heavy sigh of relief and slumps to the couch, falling asleep almost immediately, hunched over the armrest.

“You can actually _ hold _ ‘im, y’know,” Pete laughs, gesturing at Catherine’s uncertain pose. “He can’t bite ya.”

“He’s got at least three teeth in there, Petey, of course he can bite,” she complains, but brings the gurgling baby closer anyway, and she has to admit that she melts a little when that giant head rests on her chest. The colossal, unquestioning eyes staring up at her don’t hurt. A hint of something stirs in her and she crushes it down right quick. “What I wanna know is why it came down to me when there’s at least twenty other people here.”

“Oh, he’s made the rounds,” Pete explains, twisting the top off a Logger and sliding it into his pocket. He wiggles one thick finger under the baby’s chin, eliciting a giggle. “He just won’t stay in one place long enough for his mama to catch a break, will he?”

And so it is; Catherine joins Nan and Pete and several of their guests in the kitchen, switching the baby from hip to hip as her arms tire, wiping away drool and making him shriek with laughter by pulling goofy faces, all while she holds two conversations. One, the polite, tiresome small-talk - How do you know Pete? How long did you work at Pershing? Did this guy work hard or hardly work (cue uproarious laughter)? The other, an anxious, rapid stream of her own questions, rushing by in her stream of consciousness, too fast to catch them all.

Something’s wrong with Trevor.

Ever since he hung up the phone with Michael, he's been tense. Closed off. Avoiding her eyes. Mr. Open Book has suddenly shut her out, and he’s never been mum about the grisly details of his work. He’d been all too giddy to share how many bikers gave their lives so he could teach her to drive stick at the airfield, and Catherine’s pretty sure she now knows enough about the production of meth to cook up a passable batch herself.

Whatever Trevor’s keeping from her, then, it must be big. That doesn’t exactly alleviate her fears any. 

And the fact that this new tight-lipped policy of his came into effect right after their first night together...it’s enough that Catherine doesn’t feel much like eating any of the copious amounts of food Nan surely spent all day fussing over.

Last night was...well, Catherine doesn’t feel quite right thinking about it in front of a pair of sweet old grandparents and their innocent little grandson. Ever since she and Trevor were interrupted in the lead-up to round two this morning, Catherine has been able to think of little else but the things she now knows Trevor is capable of doing to her. Incredible, powerful things that make her want to make her new home in his bed, regardless of how filthy it is (don’t think about that too much). 

Despite her upbringing, she's no prude. But this is new ground. They skipped the awkward hand-holding and the hesitant making out and went straight to fucking furiously on his kitchen table. It's not exactly a luxury that's been afforded to her in recent (or distant) memory.

_ You’re really getting involved with another fucking criminal, _ the rational part of Catherine's brain pipes up, her inner voice a condescending mix of disbelief and pity. _ What a fucking type to have. The patron saint of bad guys with thinning hair and funny accents is laughing at you right now. _

Pete catches her biting her cuticles several times and pulls her hand away from her mouth with that fatherly warmth that Catherine hadn’t realized she’d missed so much. Jesus, she could really use a cigarette.

When the others have gone home (only after the fussy baby can be convinced to untangle his chubby fingers from Catherine’s hair) and the three of them have settled in for dessert - coffee and the famous raspberry pie Catherine was promised - Nan asks, “So what _ are _ you up to nowadays? Pete’s been having a heck of a time getting in touch with you - been worried sick.” She pats her husband’s hand. “Thought he was going to get the police involved, especially after that shootout down the street a couple weeks ago. Crazy times we live in.”

“Oh, um-”

“_Nancy._” 

Nan just shrugs and turns her attention back to Catherine. Pete rests his forehead in his palm. 

“Oh, you know, just…” Catherine fumbles - somehow, she hadn’t expected this question. “Hanging out, getting ready to move, that sort of thing.”

“Uh-huh. And how about this new guy?”

Even more so than with the previous question, Catherine is blindsided. _ The most ridiculous, absurd, and fascinating human being I’ve ever met, _she thinks, but doesn't know how to begin explaining what any of that means.

“Look how she’s heating up!” Nan hoots. She nudges Pete, who looks so embarrassed that Catherine would laugh if she wasn’t sunk just as far down in her seat as him. “I _ told _you it was a guy, Peter.”

“I don’t know, I...I just met him last month. He...uh…”

_ Abducted me? _

_ Interrogated me? _

_ Terrorized me? _

_ Got into my head to the point where all I can think about is the next time I can have him all over me? _

“I met him during a convention,” is what Catherine decides on. Technically true.

“And does ‘him’ have a name?” Nan prods, leaning forward. There’s no escape. “What does ‘he’ do?”

God, not this. This type of questioning always spikes her anxiety, but Catherine can’t be mad; it's not even close to the way her mother used to cry and wail and belittle her about boys nowhere near as bad as Trevor. If only her mother had known how good she had it when her daughter's boy troubles stopped at underage smoking and ripped jeans. 

“His name is Tre-_Travis, _and, uh, he-”

Again, Pete rescues her. “Come on, honey, she don’t want to talk about it, so quit.”

Nancy puts up her hands in defeat while Catherine gives Pete a thumbs-up. 

“How have things been at Pershing since I left?” Catherine asks, now that she’s free of the hot seat. She rolls her warm mug between her hands the way she’s seen Trevor do dozens of times at the diner, and finds comfort in it. She thinks of him smiling at her from across the table, creases at the corners of his mouth and eyes. 

“Shit, is how things’ve been,” Pete sighs, leaning back in the wooden chair with an ominous creak. “Utter lunacy.”

Nan interjects. “He’s retiring, end of the year.” 

Catherine’s eyes go wide and dart between them as Pete nods solemnly. “What, really? That bad, huh? But you love your job.”

Pete leans forward, crosses his burly arms on the table. “_Loved. _ Warden Dalton’s just…” He pauses, and Catherine’s never seen this mountain of a man reduced to uncertainty like this. “Well, first off, he never hired no one to replace ya. He took it over himself for a couple days, then shoved it off on his secretary when it got too hard, I guess.”

“Oh, you mean his mistress? _ She’s _ in charge of supervision?”

“Not no more. Missus Dalton musta found out about the two of ‘em, ‘cause she came in raisin’ hell and Dalton barely got his office door shut before she let into ‘im. Next day, secretary’s desk was empty.”

“Wasn’t the first time, won’t be the last,” Catherine notes, and Nan shakes her head. “So, what, now it’s just chaos?”

“At least when you was runnin’ things, it was _ organized _ chaos,” Pete says, slapping the blade of one palm into the other. As he speaks, his gruff voice gets louder until he’s just short of shouting. “Now, Dalton’s got no reason _ not _ to turn a blind eye. Now, they’re just bringin’ in new guards and no one’s botherin’ to check if they’re sane or even _ qualified, _ for Chrissake.”

“_Peter."_

“What? It’s true. God can forgive the occasional use of his name in vain.”

“And if he can’t, you can sit next to me on the bus to the hot place,” Catherine laughs, earning a snicker from Pete and narrow eyes from Nan. Then she drops her gaze to the worn kitchen table, running a fingertip along a particularly deep scratch. “I’m sorry, Petey.”

“Don’t be,” Pete replies firmly. “You was pushed out, ‘n we all know it. I just hope I can hold out ‘til social security kicks in, ‘cause I give it less than six months before we got a full-on prison riot on our hands.”

Despite his kindness, Catherine feels that painful twinge of guilt deep in her chest. If she'd put up more of a fight, maybe Pete could have worked his last few years of retirement with at least _ some _ sort of hope. 

“So, Levi certainly took a likin' to you," Pete says from behind his mug, eyebrows raised, affecting nonchalance. "When’re you thinkin’ about havin’ one’a them?”

Catherine doesn't pick up on his tone until it's too late. “One of what?”

Nan gasps, a million-megawatt smile overtaking her entire face. “A _ baby!_”

The nose crinkle of disdain is deployed. “You are so irritating, Pete, you know that?”

All through helping her clean up, Nan flutters about in a grandmotherly fervor, and though Catherine threatens to end Pete’s retirement for him even earlier, she can’t help the pure affection that floods her. 

As she settles in between them on the couch, content just to be there even though they’re insistent upon watching Steve Haines dick around in gangland, she almost doesn’t worry about Trevor at all.

\--

Trevor doesn't go in right away.

He lingers in Michael's packed driveway, glaring at the front doors as though projecting his murderous thoughts at them will make the people inside bend to his will. 

Then, he sees Packie's junker of a car parked under the veranda, and he’s in just the right mood to slash the tires. He gets the knife out of his boot and everything, but the stars must be aligned in the Irishman’s favor, because Trevor performs the miracle of exercising restraint. Instead, he looks around for any cars he doesn’t recognize, curses when he finds none. Maybe Bellic didn't show after all.

He catches his reflection in the side mirror. He still has her damn lipstick all over his mouth. He scrubs it off with the sleeve of his jacket.

As usual, Trevor’s company is hardly noticed when he throws open the double doors and trudges in to find them gathered around Michael's kitchen island, emptying that stupid monogrammed whiskey decanter. 

The presence of a stranger is undeniable to Trevor’s keen sixth sense. His jaw may as well be wired shut with how tight it just got. He tries not one bit to keep the snarl out of his voice when he announces his presence with a booming, "You must be Niko!"

He takes advantage of the resulting hush to absorb the image of the man standing at the opposite end of the island, etching it in stone, unblinking as Bellic eyes him with caution in his tight face. Shorter, Trevor realizes with a touch of gleeful macho superiority. He inspects Bellic’s hunched, exhausted stature. A good deal younger, yes, but smaller. Weaker. 

He feels himself smile, a creeping, vicious grin. It really _ had _ been his intention to keep things civil. That was before he knew what laying eyes on Niko would actually _ feel _ like. "So nice'ta finally meetcha, _ pard'. _"

Michael speaks, and the rest of the world filters back into Trevor's pinholed vision. "Relax, bro, have a drink, huh? This is-"

"I fucking know who it is, Michael, didnt I just fucking say who it is?" 

Michael's a little dazed by the booze that he was probably day-drinking long before he cracked open the scotch for his guests, but he still has that sharp warning in his eyes. Trevor can't stand it. 

"We're in the money, my man!" Packie cheers, the atmosphere completely lost on him (as it is even when he _ isn't _ tipsy). "My boy here finally came through wit' the dough! Why don'cha join us, celebrate a job well done, yeah?"

No one moves. No one speaks. 

Trevor hears his pulse in his ears, feels it behind his eyes.

Niko breaks the silence, calm and cool. “Where is Catherine?”

Trevor feels the others staring at him expectantly, sobering up far too quickly for his taste. Bellic, Trevor notes, is the only one without a glass.

“T?” 

Trevor's mouth won't coordinate with his brain. 

Michael's voice is tight. "Trevor."

“She’s _ fine, _ alright,” Trevor spits, despising Michael as much as he does Bellic for reducing him to a cornered animal. It’s a role he does not play well.

Niko paces around the counter with the barest hint of a limp, slow and sure. Trevor knows that stiff stride. Bellic is armed. "That is not what I asked."

The world is reduced to the two of them and the claustrophobic, airless space between them when Niko comes to a stop mere feet away. Trevor sees himself there, literally and metaphorically, in the other man’s vigilant, dissecting stare, and he _ hates _ it.

Trevor feels himself sneer at the intrusion, baring his teeth. Watching from outside a body that's being piloted entirely by instinct. “What are you, the fuckin' KGB? You wanna know so bad, pick up the phone and call ‘er yourself."

Packie raises his glass to that. Trevor sees Lester, ever alert, looking over at Michael with bulging eyes, establishing mutual awareness. Trevor hates that, too.

"T, what the fuck is goin' on wit' you?" From under his breath, Franklin’s question sounds almost rhetorical.

"Unless you're too much of a fuckin' pussy," Trevor goes on, unable to stop himself even if he wanted to, "which, seems to me, is the likely scenario, considerin' you left ‘er in the hands of complete strangers after pissing off the fuckin' _ mob. _"

Michael comes back to life with a huff and a spread of his arms. "The fuck are you talkin' about? What does that have to do-" 

“Shut the _ fuck up, _ Michael!” Trevor juts a cautionary finger at him. "I'm asking our _ esteemed employer _ here why he didn't just take care of this whole thing himself if her safety _ concerns _ him so fuckin' much."

“Come on, guys, huh?” Lester wheedles after a hit of his inhaler. “Let’s- let’s all just-”

Niko holds up a hand, commanding silence. Trevor wants to tear that hand right off his fucking arm, snap the tendons with his teeth.

"I don't understand why you seem to think that is any of your business. I was told that your friend here" - Niko gestures at Lester - "was the one to call if I had a problem on the west coast. I had a problem, so I called. That is all any of you should need to know."

"It is," Lester wheezes, still clutching his chest and glowering up at Trevor. "Don’t mind him, he doesn't speak for all of us."

Trevor takes a step, just to watch him flinch. "Oh _ fuck _ yourself, Crest, you're only worried about your goddamn reputation."

“Am I having a stroke right now, or what?" Niko looks to the others, palms open. "What the fuck is this? _ Where is Catherine?_”

“T, man, come _ on_,” Michael pleads. Lester puffs at his inhaler.

Trevor scoffs. "What am I, her fuckin' keeper?"

Five voices rise in unison. "_Yes!_"

Trevor crosses his arms, tries to hide how hard he’s squeezing himself, like it will keep his arms from acting on the cravings of his screaming id. "Broken fuckin' records- look, she said she had _ plans, _ alright?"

Michael’s hands fly up to his head, face getting redder by the second. "You let her go off _ by herself?_"

"_You _ are the ones responsible for her,” Niko bites, still under control, but Trevor can see that the mask is starting to slip. “I was promised no harm would come to her, and what happens? You nearly run her off the road. You _ kidnap _ her. Let the Pegorinos _ shoot up her house-_”

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Michael interjects, offended now. He pushes a finger into the countertop, his face full-on scarlet. "The only people that got anywhere near Catherine were the people gettin' paid to. We had a contingency plan - no thanks to you, by the way - an’ we used it. Soon as the Pegorinos showed up, she was outta here."

“We could only work with what you gave us, Bellic,” Lester adds, still winded. “You don’t answer your emails, no callback number, what did you expect?”

Niko dismisses it all with a noise of unmitigated disgust. “_Whatever. _She’s going to LC until this is done. I’ve got people there who’ll look after her, my cousin-”

“Makin’ her everybody else’s responsibility but _ yours. _ Well, how about this, _ comrade? _ Catherine’s a big girl, she can make her own decisions. Maybe she fuckin’ _ likes _ it here.” Trevor puts in every ounce of condescension he can, though he knows deep down that Michael and Niko aren’t the only one’s he’s trying to convince. "You ain’t takin’ her anywhere she don’t wanna be."

Trevor can practically see a lightbulb go off over Franklin’s head, but he doesn’t have time to worry about it now. The Serb’s gaunt face pinches, and Trevor recognizes the terrible storm building beneath his brow. He counts it as a victory. 

Niko’s voice is quiet now, nothing left in him but a toneless rumble. “What you _ are _ going to do is tell me where you took her.” Naught but inches separate their heaving bodies. “ _ Now. _”

“Oh, yeah, why don’t you try and fuckin’ make me, huh?” Trevor is absolutely vibrating. “Come on. I _ want _ you to, you fuckin’ coward. _ Make me! _”

Hands still tangled in his hair, eyes perfectly round, Michael’s voice intercedes, brimming with mounting horror. 

“Oh, god, Trevor,” he breathes. “_What did you do to her?_”

_ “Oh, fuck you, Michael!” _

Niko cries out from deep in his chest, the guttural sound of a man who’s reached the breaking point, and whips his gun from his jacket. The room _ explodes. _

“_Oh, fuck you, too!_”

“Jesus, what the fuck!”

“Hey, hey, hey! Everybody just-”

“Trevor, wha- hey, wh- _ where the fuck are you going?_”

“Niko, man, chill! _ Chill!_"

In the midst of the overlapping voices, Trevor’s truck thunders to life outside. Niko dashes to the foyer, whips around frantically. He swipes Michael’s keys off the hall table the instant he sees them.

“Ay, _ AY!_” Michael roars, too many steps behind, “_What the fuck do you think you’re doing?_”

Niko darts through the still-swinging front door, down the steps, and all but _ leaps _ for Michael’s Tailgater. Michael reaches the door in time to see his own car squealing down the driveway, leaving black tracks and acrid exhaust. 

“_Get the fuck back here!_”

The recently-repaired front gate is bashed entirely off its hinges and flies into the street in a shower of sparks. Screams, panicked honking, burnt rubber. 

“_Mike, man, fuck, he’s gonna kill ‘im!” _ Franklin bellows from further down the way. _ “Get in my car, we gotta fuckin' move!_”

\--

“You’re sure you don’t want a ride.”

“Yes, Petey, thank you.” Catherine pats his arm and points in a vague direction. “My friend lives just a couple houses down.”

Trevor isn’t answering his phone and it’s past time for polite company to be leaving. She doesn’t want Pete thinking that Trevor’s a bum who forgot her, even if that’s precisely what happened. Something something daddy issues.

Nan calls to him from the couch. “Peter, come quick or you’re gonna miss that Tracey girl’s whole routine!”

“Go on, I’m fine,” Catherine reassures him, but he doesn’t look all that reassured.

“You call me if you need anything. Promise?”

“Promise.”

Catherine definitely should not be wandering the Heights by herself, and she’s a total fucking moron for doing it at night, in this outfit. She walks a little faster when she hears men shouting from further in the neighborhood, clutching her purse tight to her side, bottle of mace ready to go in the other hand. It's been a decade since she prayed, but now seems like the appropriate time. 

Her house off El Rancho isn’t too terribly far on foot, even in heels. Who knows, maybe someone out there _ is _ listening - she doesn't pass a single person on the way.

It feels off to see an empty space where her faithful little Blista used to sit, but at the very least, a tiny bit of comfort can be drawn from the thought of the Ruiner that waits for her in Trevor’s driveway. Mail pokes out of the door slot every which way, and the veritable rainforest of potted plants on the porch, once so meticulously cared for, has been reduced to terracotta shards and browning leaves in a carpet of bone-dry soil. 

The weirdest part of all of this is that her brain is having a hard time identifying this house as “home”. All that comes to mind at that word is a tiny trailer in the desert and gangly arms and amber eyes.

Franklin must have had someone come by and repair the door, bless him, because fresh paint hits Catherine’s nose over and above the stench of decomposition as soon as she gets there. She makes a note to text him as she pushes her way in, but that and every other thought flees her mind as she stands in the doorway, bombarded all at once by unfamiliar smells and _ very _ unfamiliar sights. 

She deposits her keys on the hall table out of force of habit and moves carefully through the dark. Every drawer, every cabinet, hangs open like empty mouths. Holes in the drywall. Papers and books absolutely everywhere, trampled by bootprints that had clearly trudged through the dirt from yet more rotting houseplants. Antiques and oddities that Catherine’s spent the last ten years collecting, things that have traveled coast to coast and back again, lay scattered, broken, and she realizes how little of her house is actually going to make it to Harmony.

God damn the Pegorinos.

She’s actually doing okay with it, taking things in stride - _ it’s just stuff, me and Gus are okay _ \- until she sees the remains of her record collection. It rests in a kaleidoscopic heap in the corner of the living room, where the Victrola used to stand under white lace curtains but now lays caved-in and useless on its side.

Catherine sifts through the debris on her knees with quiet, bitter tears welling and falling, staining and warping the aged cardboard sleeves. This was more than an assault on her possessions, this was an attack on her memories; the first breakfast she made in this kitchen, accompanied by The Ink Spots. Her first LS breakup, eased along by Lena Horne. Holding a very patient Gus’ front paws to wiggle around with him to Louis Prima. Records that Catherine played to drown out her mother screaming down the phone at her father or shouting insults through Catherine’s bedroom door. Records she played to muffle the deafening tornado of her own terrible thoughts. 

Whoever did this clearly enjoyed themselves while tearing each vinyl from its cover and hurling it to the floor, against the walls, crushed it under their heels. Catherine can almost hear them snickering.

She thinks she may have found the only intact disc - her tiny 45 of Connie Francis’ _ Who’s Sorry Now _ \- and she’s tucking it into her purse, holding in sobs until her diaphragm aches, when her phone rings.

“‘M outside,” Trevor grunts on the other end.

Catherine rises from her sore knees, peeks out through the curtains. “Outside where?”

“The fuck do you mean, ‘outside where’?” Something is definitely wrong with him, and whatever it is, it seems to have gotten worse. His words come fast and breathless. “Come _ on_, I’m fuckin’ exhausted, I need a drink.”

“I’m, uh…” Catherine cringes, finally thinking through her decision now that she has to explain it out loud. “I left. I walked to my house.”

“You did _what?_" A pause, followed by unintelligible muttering. Then, "Don’t move a fuckin’ muscle, I’m coming.”

Bile rises in her throat and hot tears make their stinging reappearance when he hangs up on her. She recognizes this feeling immediately. Same as with her dad. Fear.

In the five minutes it takes Trevor to rumble to a stop out on the street, Catherine dries her eyes, fixes her makeup, changes into fresh underthings, and throws a bag of essentials together. She’s heading for the front door when Trevor raps hard on it, impatient. He cuts his eyes at her when she answers. 

“The fuck were you thinkin’, walkin’ over here this time’a night?” He growls in place of a greeting, slamming the door behind him and shoving past her to check the doorways and the corners of the rooms beyond. He's breathing so hard. Is he high?

Catherine blinks rapidly and backs away a couple steps when Trevor approaches again, his furious energy overwhelming her. She can feel that tingling in the back of her throat, feel the hairs on her arms stand up. Same as with her dad. “Trevor, I, I’m sor-” 

But she can’t get out from under his shadow. Trevor’s pupils are open so wide that his eyes look black. Catherine can't breathe. He backs her against the foyer wall, bumping the hall table and toppling one of the few intact decorations - a rough clay vase that an inmate made for her years ago. 

“What, you _ wanna _ get raped, huh? Because hangin’ around places like this by yourself, that’s how you get picked up by fuckin’ maniacs!" 

God, why? Why is he so angry? What did she _ do? _

"That’s how you get tortured, that’s how you get cut up an’ fed to somebody’s fuckin’ dogs! And then where the fuck would that leave me, huh? What the fuck would I do then?"

“_ Jesus, _ Trevor, what the fuck!”

Her shriek seems to snap Trevor out of it. Some of the fight goes out of his wild eyes, enough that Catherine stops huddling against the wall and stands up straight. There’s an eon where they can only hear each other’s panting. 

“You been cryin’ again,” Trevor observes, and flinches when Catherine pushes his hands away from the sides of her face. She straightens her dress and bends to pick up the bags she packed. She hasn't stopped shivering. 

“Of course I have, look at the state of my house! And then you come in here acting like _this?_” Catherine stomps her foot, leans into Trevor until he’s the one stepping back. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you need to stop taking it out on me, _now._"

“It’s just stuff,” Trevor replies stupidly.

Catherine throws up her hands and whirls for the door. She berates him all the way down to the street as he follows, helpless. “Gosh, stupid me, _ caring _ about things. If I recall correctly, thirty bikers are buried in the desert because they _ broke your action figure._”

Trevor clenches his fists and for one horrifying moment, Catherine thinks he’s going to hit her, but he just takes a deep breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Catherine tosses her things in the truck bed and just stands there, peering up at him, eyes still wet. A siren passes, and a chorus of dogs after that. Then, nothing. 

Trevor checks his watch and scrubs his palms over his face. It’s hollow when he finally looks down at her.

“Fuck it, wanna go see Love Fist?”

\--

Catherine’s never been to Tequi-La-La’s, even though it’s a staple of the punk bands she loved in high school. Aging punk bands with no original members remaining, who now use the venue to revisit their glory years by putting their growing paunches and receding hairlines back in the spotlight. She remembers the time she caught the back of her mother’s hand across the face because she tried to sneak out and come see Agent Orange when they played here during her sophomore year. But punk bands, and high school, and her ravaged house, and even her fight with Trevor are the last things on Catherine's mind. 

She can’t think about anything but the way Trevor’s slotted so tight against her back, holding her to him by the hips and swaying them both in time to the (frankly terrible) music.

“I’m a fucking idiot,” he repents every so often. “I’m a fucking idiot and I never should have yelled at you, sweet pea.” 

Catherine fixates on his hands, big and scarred and lit up with red neon, sliding hungrily up her thighs, under her skirt, deft fingers slipping under her stockings, brushing white-hot against her soaking core. He's hard, desperately hard against the small of her back, and it makes her mouth water. It's all she can do to cling to Trevor's arms and not be swept away in the merciless tide of his longing, even though she knows she’s long gone. 

_ She’s _ the idiot, and she knows it.

The band and the full-on rioting they incite from the writhing crowd play second fiddle to his groaning soft and low in her ear, his teeth at the shell of it, just painful enough. When she pulls her hair away from the spot behind it, Trevor doesn’t need any further instruction, and his wet mouth there is her new favorite feeling. Her sheltered life ended when she left home at eighteen, true, but still, Catherine’s never been full-on groped in public before. The banner on the back of Trevor's shoulder must be his life’s motto: Taketh No Shits, Giveth No Fucks. 

This is what Trevor does best. He makes her forget.

“Take me somewhere.”

“Mmmm, bathroom?” His voice grates down her back, plucking each vertebrae, where it settles heavy below her stomach, leaden with promise. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

She elbows him. “_Hotel._”

“Your wish is my fuckin’ command.”

\--

Second verse, same as the first. 

In a fine emulation of this morning (yesterday morning, by now), they stumble into the swanky rented room, hardly knowing where one ends and the other begins. 

Trevor breaks away long enough to shrug out of his denim jacket and then he’s crushing her to him again, tongue demanding and teeth rasping. It's been too long since she tasted him, too long since she felt him under her searching hands. Every second between then and now feels like wasted time. 

Catherine lets herself be swept over to the bed, lets Trevor bend her over it and run his hands down her curves, hoist her skirt over her ass and halfway up her back, all while she pants into the comforter.

Trevor’s breath comes hot and gratifying as he bows down to kiss along the dip in her spine. “Fuck, this body was _ made _ to drive me fuckin’ crazy.”

He devastates her senses completely, and she’s happy to let him, objecting only when he goes to undo the buttons lining the back of her dress She reaches behind to close her hands over his. "Trev, wait. _ Wait._"

“What fuckin’ for?”

Trevor feels her struggling beneath him and - with surprising gentleness - helps her turn onto her back so she can face him. The _ want _burning his brown eyes down to embers, the insistence of his hands at either side of her head and his knee between her thighs, sends a shudder through her.

Catherine puts her hands up against his chest to subdue him and he stares down at them, dazed. He brings one to his mouth, bites down on one small knuckle, and she whines. "Come on, I want to take this slow.”

Trevor doesn’t say anything, gnawing on each knuckle in turn, and she’s not even sure he heard her.

“Last night, I mean, it was unbelievable, but it was so _ fast._” Catherine frees her hand and slides her palms over his shoulders, up his taut neck, grips at the hair on the back of his head. That gets his attention. “Let's take our time, go slow. Okay?"

Trevor's frown tells her that 'take our time' and 'go slow' are foreign concepts.

"Please? You owe me, for earlier." 

His frown softens a little. "No promises, darlin'."

They kick off their shoes and sit cross-legged on top of the downy comforter, knees touching knees. Though her hands are itching to push Trevor down and have her way, Catherine knows a thing or two about delayed gratification.

Trevor goes first. He reaches down and peels his once-white T-shirt off over his head, tosses it clear across the room, and rests his hands on his knees. Catherine swallows.

It’s the first time she’s gotten a real good look at Trevor’s body, aside from stolen glances here and there, and it’s so fucking good that she can hardly stand to keep her hands off him. His dick is straining against the inseam of his jeans already, and the sight has her struggling to remember to breathe. She sees his adam's apple bob in his throat, can feel the impossible amount of heat radiating off him. Everything on him, every muscle, every tendon, is tense, _ rigid _, and she wonders if he ever relaxes. 

As if in answer to the question, Trevor reaches behind her, lithe fingers going to work on the buttons again. He gets two more undone before Catherine can swat him away. 

"Slow, remember?"

"Fuck _ me_." Trevor sits back and digs the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. He sighs when he sees her pointed look. "I'm trying. Jesus, am I trying."

Catherine isn't planning to leave him hanging out to dry. She watches his gaze travel down her back, the dogged, unbreakable focus he gives to the way her practiced fingers slide each loop over each clasp, until there's enough give to pull at the sleeves and reveal the delicate lace filigree of her bra. 

She sees Trevor palm himself through the thick fabric of his pants, leaning back on his other hand, his breaths coming shallow as she slides the dress down her arms, her skin erupting into goosebumps at her own touch. Catherine muses about how long it will take him to give in and take over, and about how she’ll absolutely let him.

Trevor stumbles over himself when she's finally bare-chested, but he behaves. "You're- god, you're-" 

"Your turn."

Trevor's down to his socks and underwear before she even finishes. His dick outlined in his tented briefs, the muscled planes of his thighs, the dark, fine hair - god, the only other time she's ever wanted anyone this fucking bad was last night, when Trevor had her laid out on his table. Catherine has no choice but to touch herself, ease some of the desperate ache between her legs. 

It's all the invitation Trevor needs.

He's on her in the space of a heartbeat, and the glimpse she catches of his smoldering eyes - pure animal impulse - relieves her of the ability to form coherent thought. Trevor yanks off her garter belt, tearing the tops of her delicate stockings before clawing those and her thoroughly drenched panties off as well. Oh, well, ‘slow’ was worth a shot.

"Hands and knees," he instructs, and hops off the bed to root through his pockets for a condom. Seconds later, the mattress dips and complains and Catherine feels Trevor's damp thighs when he kneels behind her.

She drops her head to the pillows, thrusts her hips back, and Trevor obliges her demands. His groan, unrestrained and bordering on incredulous, rivals hers at the feeling of slipping so easily inside, coaxed as deep as he can go.

"_ Christ, _ ‘m not gonna last,” Trevor growls. “A_gain._”

Catherine knows he’s reluctant to move, but she needs at least _some_ friction. When she tilts her hips, whimpering, Trevor seems to get the hint. He traps her crossed ankles between his knees and her crossed forearms in his hand, holds them tight to her back in makeshift bondage, and the angle, the _ pressure_, drive her to cry out for him.

“Trevor, _god,_ _please_ don’t stop-”

“I can’t fuckin’ wait ‘til I can- _ hah- _ ‘til I can fuck you bare,” comes his hoarse voice from above her. His hands are iron at her hips, around her wrists. “That little throat is gonna be raw for days.”

Black dances at the corners of Catherine’s vision and her arms are going numb. “I’m- Trevor, I’m-”

"Come on, baby,” he pleads again. “Tell me you're mine."

"I'm yours, Trevor-"

"I ain't goin' anywhere, baby, _ fuck, _ not for anything-"

She hisses through her teeth and clenches around him, fit to push him out, and every high-minded ambition Trevor’s ever had, every dragon he’s ever chased, it’s obliterated and replaced with this. Just this. The kind of singular drive that any human who’s constantly full of testosterone would recognize. Trevor wants to come in her, over and over, fill her up until he can watch it drip out of her, use it to ease his way back in until she is ruined for anyone else but him. 

Just the thought has him coming hard, with a choked sound impossible to identify as human, as far up inside her as he can go with his arms wrapped tight as can be around her middle.

Ringing silence sets in and brings clarity with it. He pulls out gingerly, releases his grip, and hovers over her, drowning in dread. The return of reality is always the part Trevor resents most. 

A reality where she looks up at him like this, though - certainly like he's worth fucking, maybe like he's worth knowing, maybe like he's even worth trusting - it's a reality that terrifies him with how soon and how profoundly he needs it. And with how wrong Catherine is about all of it.

All cleaned up but still naked, Trevor props his head up on one arm, loose-limbed and zoning out as Catherine pulls about a hundred bobby pins from her complicated hairdo. She deposits them on the dresser and produces a brush from her bag, transforming the curls into waves. As always, Trevor watches her, and thinks of how he watched her for so long. He'd like to go back and tell himself from a couple weeks ago that her hair is just as soft as he imagined.

Some time later, he sits back against the headboard in his underwear with Catherine settled against his chest, between his legs. She holds one of his hands in both of hers while he runs the fingers of the other through her uniform, glossy waves and thinks about how wrong his weathered body looks with hers leaning against it. She smells so fucking good, that same nostalgic honeysuckle perfume. The flickering TV is the only light, but all either of them is watching is the gaudy wash of colors dousing them both.

Trevor is orange when he asks, "How long’s it take you to put your hair up like that, anyhow?"

Catherine is green when she answers, "A hell of a lot longer than it takes you to mess it up.”

Then there's a brush of her lips, a swipe of her tongue, and she occupies him that way for a long, lazy while.

Trevor is pink when he says, "I noticed you ain't tattooed here," and points at the space right at the tip of her sternum, her solar plexus. "That's a good-size piece'a real estate."

Catherine’s yellow when she cringes. "I heard it's the absolute worst spot." She brings their palms together and compares their hand sizes idly. "Plus, that's about the only clear spot, and I'm not getting anything on my hands or feet. Once that spot's filled, it's...it's kind of over, you know? No more tattoos."

"Nah, come on, I think a nice classic 'thug life' across the knuckles would really pull the whole ensemble together."

Trevor could listen to that laugh for the rest of the night, for the rest of the week, for the rest of always.

Trevor's soon dozing off, soothed supremely by Catherine's fingertips trailing over the veins that stand out along his forearms, when she stops humming and stills her hands. He cracks open one eye and sees her chewing her bottom lip, staring through the TV.

"What's on your mind, sweet pea?"

“I, um…” Her face falls into shadow when she turns it to him. "I think we need to talk."

Oh, he's awake now. "So talk."

"It's just, earlier…"

Trevor doesn't want to be reminded of earlier. He doesn’t want to remember that awful, broken look, and the nauseating knowledge that he was no better than her tyrant of a father. But what kind of pathetic excuse for a man would he be if he doesn't at least try?

He nudges her, his voice faint. "Earlier…" 

Catherine seems to be so surprised by his playing ball that she needs a moment to find the right words. Trevor stays quiet, listening to her teeth work at her poor lip, the unmistakable sound of her gears turning. He pushes her cheeks in with his fingers and thumb, forcing her swollen lips out of the punishing grasp of her teeth, and there’s the briefest hint of a smile.

"This is," she starts, and stops, her eyebrows up. "I mean, this is kind of intense for-"

Trevor circles his hand. "Skip the disclaimers, huh?"

"It’s like...sometimes, you…" Catherine closes her eyes to steady herself. "Sometimes, you remind me of my dad."

“Yeah, I was afraid you’d say that.”

"At the junkyard, and at Franklin's, and earlier, at my house…” Catherine keeps Trevor grounded with nothing but her touch, light and relieving. He doesn’t think this is how conversations like this are supposed to go. “With my dad, it was like...he would just _ lose _ it sometimes, and when he was yelling at us, at me and my mom, there was just…” The look in her eyes is haunted. “There was just _ nothing. _ It scared me so bad. There was this hilarious, charming, loving guy, and then, he would just..._change. _ And one day, he, he didn’t change back.”

Trevor would give every red cent he’s ever swindled, he would give worlds, planets, his own soul if it ever existed in the first place, to never have to see Catherine's face like this again.

“I don’t want to be scared of you, Trevor.”

The words almost get shut out entirely, with how tightly Trevor's reflexively screwed his eyes closed against them.

“Fuck. _ Fuck._” He shudders. He was wrong. He’s no man, no kind of man at all. Because what kind of man would cause a woman that kind of misery? His palms crash to his forehead, his nails biting at his scalp. Catherine rushes to pull them away, but Trevor can’t stomach the thought of her comforting him. He shoves off the bed, paces to the huge window, and presses his palms there instead until they’re pale. 

“Trevor-”

"I wasted so many years, _ so many fucking years, _ feeling that _ exact _ same way and I cannot fucking _ stand _ the thought of doing that to you."

"I'm not scared of you, Trevor," Catherine insists. She crawls off the bed and appears at his side, somehow even smaller than usual. She doesn't try to touch him. “You’re not my dad. You’re _ not. _ I mean, you're an asshole, I won't deny that" - Trevor can’t help but smile - "but you don't scare me."

“Not yet, you mean.” 

“Oh, so you’re planning to then?”

He scowls. “You know what I mean.”

"Trevor, I don't need you to grovel, and I don't need you to beat yourself up about it."

"Sheesh, some Catholic_ you_ are."

Catherine scrunches her nose at him, but her expression is wry. "And I'm not going to pry about whatever's going on with you. What I need is for you to not chase me away, because I don't want to have to run." She prods him in the chest. "Got it?"

There was a tree Trevor saw once, up north. Something had gotten to it, inside it. Pure rot - root and branch. The trunk was split open, its decaying guts on display for the world to see, yet no one cared or even knew it was there except for him. 

With Catherine in what’s quickly becoming her usual spot against his chest, Trevor rolls over to turn out the light and tries very hard not to think about how, when her timer runs out, when she changes her mind about him, about his worthiness, he will be left alone to decompose.

\--

A thousand volts charge through Luca's face, and then there’s no feeling at all, just the way he likes it.

He can barely understand what the Russian across the table from him is saying, as much from the pounding club music as the man's mucus-thick accent, and the coke isn’t helping his comprehension any.

"Ma_donn'_, this is good fuckin' blow,” Luca sighs, thumbing at his nose. “This come straight off the leaf?”

“More where that comes from, my friend,” the Russian laughs, his amusement clear even with his face thrown in shadow. “Now, what are you thinking of my proposal?”

Luca grasps at the sides of his head in an effort to keep it from falling apart. “Shit, man, I dunno, this fucking _ music. _What- what were we talkin’ about again?”

"Obviously you do not appreciate importance of opportunity,” Timur, the Russian’s dopey-looking mook, says from somewhere, his accent a little easier to navigate. 

The Russian taps the ashes of his cigar into Luca’s shot glass, and Luca watches it float with fascination, tuning in only partway through the other man’s sentence.

"-and I think about asking your friend, but he is fag. He is better shoot, okay, yes, but he is fag.” 

"'Better shoot'- the fuck is that?” Luca tries to furrow his brows. “How would you even fuckin' know that?

A hearty laugh. "When I go in restroom after you, there is piss all over floor. Man who cannot aim into urinal is going to hit moving target with gun?”

"You're talkin' about my piss, and _ Rafaele's _ the fuckin' fag?"

Timur shakes his head at Luca for the hundredth time.

The Russian points two thick fingers at him. "You little gang is run by _ woman. _ Woman who put _ faggot _ to be in charge of you."

Luca bristles, but hides it with a vigorous sniff. "Raf ain't that bad."

Another throaty laugh, disbelieving, and the notion is waved away with one massive hand. "Luca. You help me find Bellic. I make you rich. Simple."

Luca huffs his own laugh. "Oh, yeah. Simple. We've spent months in this fuckin' shithole city, and the closest we got to Bellic was nearly killin' some girl's dog while some _ moulignan _ an' his buddies took out half our crew. So yeah, forgive me if I'm a little skeptical.” 

Cold interest flashes across the Russian’s face. "Girl?"

"Some bitch Bellic used to hang out wit'. Mrs. Pegorino's tryin'a catch 'er, use 'er as bait."

"So? What is problem?"

"Problem is we think she's bein' hid somewhere. Only lead we had was her address, and she ain't been there in a month.”

The Russian slaps the table, a worrying sound that makes everyone nearby jump. "You see what I am saying then, huh? You boss cannot even catch _ little girl_."

"Yeah, maybe," Luca agrees, but tries not to sound too enthused. "Why d'you need Bellic so bad, anyway?”

"He owe me money, more money than you tiny meatball brain can think of.” The Russian leans forward, elbows on the table, and his next words are sharply enunciated. “When time comes, you will tell me where is Bellic. Pellegrino get nothing."

“It’s ‘Pegorino’.” Luca signals for another shot, something to calm his nerves. "So...you're gonna pay _ me _ a lotta money...so he can pay _ you _ a lotta money? That’s a lotta effort just to break even, you don’t mind my sayin’ so.”

"No, no, some debt better paid by blood than by gold." The man sits back in the booth, exhaling a cloud of blue-black smoke that blurs his smug features. "We have an understanding?"

Luca throws back his shot, slumps, watches the lights dance, grins at passing girls.

"Tiny meatball brain, eh?" He chuckles after a moment, bending forward for another line. He rubs the excess along his gums and relaxes again, mirroring the man across the table in posture and expression. "Fuck 'em. You got it, Mr. Bulgarin."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone who played GTA IV knows where this is going lol
> 
> I said ten pages every two weeks...how about 24 pages every two and a half? 😂 I can't help it, this story always gets away from me. I love writing it! And if you're enjoying reading it, please continue to leave me those fabulous comments - I adore every single one and they keep me motivated like you wouldn't believe! 
> 
> I worry about that last scene with Trevor and Catherine...it seems a little...over-dramatic to me. Let me know what you think.
> 
> Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy. ❤️


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...because I have the best readers to ever exist...there's art for this now... 👀
> 
> (I put it right at the beginning of this chapter because I couldn't wait to share!!)
> 
> Please please please give [yellowrutherford](https://yellowrutherford.tumblr.com/) a follow on Tumblr. This story has given me new friends and honestly what better outcome could there be 😭 😭 
> 
> I've been getting more comments on this lately and I just have to thank everyone again, from the bottom of my heart, because every time I get an inbox notification, my day is instantly a thousand times better. Your support is making these hard times much brighter!

The last time Niko woke up in a hospital bed, Catherine was there.

He’d been in an accident then, too. He told Catherine he’d been riding too fast down the South Parkway. It was raining, he said, so hard he could barely make out the road markings, when he lost control of the bike and crashed. Killer bike, too. What a shame. _ Život ide dalje, _ life goes on. Short, sweet, and simple, like all the best lies are.

The fact was, he’d been chasing after some bikers. Two no-name Lost goons tied up in the whole diamond debacle. (This was right after he’d met Phil Bell, Pegorino’s right-hand man, no less. Right before that particular iron got way too hot to keep in the fire.) 

One of the bikers met his end on the front of a metro train, but Niko had to chase the other all around Rotterdam. He got the guy, but took a corner too fast on the getaway and clipped a streetlight. Right as an eighteen-wheeler was rolling by.

By some undeserved miracle, the truck hit the bike and not him, though he did slide a good two hundred feet into the curb on the median. He can still hear the crunch of the bike, the _ scream _ of the metal, straight from the throat of hell, as eighty thousand pounds of American steel converted it to spare parts. 

He still limps a little. A fractured femur will do that to you. 

Some of that fine American steel ended up inside his leg, rods and plates and screws that Catherine said made him “really cool, like a cyborg or something”, but mostly made him feel like a liability. 

It doesn’t do him any favors to think of her now, fluttering around him like a panicked bird when she saw how black and blue and just generally fucked-up he was. And, when he could finally get her to sit down, her voice soothing him to fitful sleep as she read to him - textbooks, newspapers, whatever - every day for the week he spent in the hospital, and as often as she could while he was stuck at home recovering. 

He distinctly remembers her sitting directly in a beam of sunlight with a heavy, boring-looking book in hand, and being so tripped out on pain meds that he thought the sun looked like a halo on her crown. Roman just laughed and patted him on the shoulder when Niko tried to tell him about it.

And wouldn’t it be nice to have Catherine here to look at this time, too, instead of the frown-lines and paunch that make up Michael De fucking Santa.

“What the fuck are _ you _ doing here?” Niko spits, sitting up too straight too quickly, making himself lightheaded. 

Michael’s up from the stiff-looking plastic chair, palms up in a gesture of good intent. “Easy, kid, easy. You don’t wanna shake things up too much until the anesthetic wears off. Trust me, I-”

“Where’d that fucking hillbilly take her?”

Michael shakes his head. His incredulous smirk makes Niko want to punch him right in his smug mouth. “You really don’t think about anything else, do you?”

Niko shifts, trying to gauge how easily he could stand, and his leg fucking _ hurts. _ He doesn’t let a single sound escape him, other than to demand, “His address, _ now._”

Michael’s face goes a little flatter, the polite facade wearing thin.

“Look, Niko, why don’t you let _ me _ look into it, save you the trouble, huh? He’s part of my crew, it might be better if I-”

Niko jabs a finger at him. “_Fuck _ that. You tell me where he has her, or things are going to get a lot worse for you than a totaled car.”

Niko actually jumps when Michael bursts into laughter. “Jesus, kid, alright, alright. You remind me of me when I had a lot more to lose.” Michael’s eyes go up to the ceiling - a nonverbal _ ‘why me’_.

“It’s this god-forsaken trailer park in the Senora, name of Sandy Shores. I don’t remember the exact coordinates or anything, but, well, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble remembering the truck he was drivin’.”

“Trailer park? In the desert?” Niko says it like he's never heard the words. Michael notes the tendons standing out along the man's scraped-up forearms.

“Safest place she could be and still have cell service.” Michael shrugs. “Don't get yourself worked up over it. She tells me she lived in pretty similar conditions out near Las Venturas anyway. She might be a little sturdier than you think.” 

Niko only blinks at this unsolicited analysis.

“Besides, I…” Michael fidgets with his cuff. “I kinda assumed he’d get her a motel room or something.”

The tendons are standing out in Niko's neck now too.

“You_ ‘assumed’? _What the fuck do you mean, you ‘assumed’? You didn’t know-”

“You don’t have time to fight about this with me, kid.” Michael’s tone is even, like he knows he has an upper hand. The charade is done with now. “Once they find out you’re awake, I'm sure the cops’ll wanna know why you ran a red and T-boned a patrol car.”

Niko doesn’t thank him, doesn’t apologize for turning his car into so much shrapnel. He just seethes in silence, mind racing like mad as the older man excuses himself.

Michael’s uneasy smile is gone the second he’s on the other side of the door. He weaves between nurses and patients while he gets Lester and Franklin on a conference call. 

“He’s awake. I’m goin’ to Sandy Shores.”

\--

Catherine would expect a fresh corpse in Trevor's passenger seat before she'd expect a dog, yet there it is. And it's not just any old stray, either.

Argus goes absolutely _ nuts _ when he sees her standing by the hotel door, baying and wiggling and whining, unable to wait for the truck to come to a complete stop before he launches over the side. All four paws have barely touched the ground before Catherine’s vision is pure white. 

“My _ boy! _ ” she squeals and ruffles his fur all over, tears springing to her eyes. “My beautiful Gussy boy! Oh my gosh, hi! _ Hi!! _ What are _ you _ doing here?” 

Once pets have been administered and she's got most of the slobber off her face, Catherine carries her bag over to Trevor with an ecstatic Gus hot on her heels. He's standing, leaned against the rollcage, a vision in yesterday's sweat stained t-shirt and some oversized sunglasses that were definitely intended for women (with the tag still on). His grin is absolutely the best part, thrilling and infectious.

Catherine gets close enough to see that the Bodhi’s bed is full of stuff - massive sacks of more dog food than _ twelve _dogs could ever hope to eat in a lifetime, treats of every variety (dog, cat, bird…?), toys upon toys.

"I wondered where you went this morning."

"I left a note."

Catherine scoffs. "Like I could read that." She hefts her bag into the back. "And you even harnessed a kennel in here. I'm impressed."

Trevor bows. "Thank you, thank you."

"Now how much of this did you actually _ buy?_"

Trevor plops down, still with that wicked smile. "Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to."

"Fair enough." Catherine opens the passenger door and Gus leaps in ahead of her, settling in the seat just as natural as if he'd been riding with Trevor since puppyhood. 

“He picked _ this _ one out special,” Trevor grunts, grasping around in his footwell and producing a stuffed Impotent Rage. “‘Cus he did such a good job at the pet store, _ didn’cha, boy?_” 

Gus lunges for it, gnawing away happily, and goes willingly into the kennel when Trevor directs him. Catherine thinks as she buckles her seatbelt that the three of them make a fine little posse.

Trevor ponders on that too, stealing looks at his wards whenever possible; a scarlet-lipped vixen of a woman with her long hair loose and untamed, big dog, pickup truck, palm trees whizzing by in the scathing heat of summer…Trevor’s loath to admit it, but he’s living the American Dream.

"You're yawning a lot, you sure you don't want me to take over?" Catherine asks when the skyscrapers break up into suburbs.

"Thanks, but I'm good, sweet pea.” He glances over his sunglasses, meets her eyes in the rearview mirror. “You were twitchin' so bad all night, I'm surprised you can even keep your eyes open."

She looks embarrassed. "Oh, right. Sorry. Bad dreams."

"What kind?"

"Well, of course my brain can't dream about anything normal. I'd pay a lot of money to dream about, I dunno, standing in line at the bank or something." 

"What kind of stuff?" Trevor thinks he can guess.

"Getting chased. Being attacked.Tornados, sometimes. Bad stuff," Catherine says with practiced indifference. “After you guys tried to catch me the first time, you know, on the highway-”

“Don’t fuckin’ remind me,” Trevor groans.

“Well, after that, I dreamed about Michael’s eyes a lot. And not in a good way.”

Trevor ‘hmm’s, not sure of how to respond to that but sure he doesn’t want to keep talking about it.

Catherine checks on Gus for the five thousandth time before resting her head on Trevor's shoulder. "What do _ you _ usually dream about?"

"I don't dream anymore, thank fuck. You know, because of the, uh."

"The meth." 

A statement of fact. No judgment.

"Yeah. Well, no."

She gives him a fleeting, hesitant glance. "You ever...you ever thought about quitting?"

"What, meth?"

"Well, I mean, what else is there?"

"I'm pretty sure you don't wanna go down this road so soon, darlin'."

"I've worked with prisoners for six years, Trevor," she reminds him. "I’ve heard some truly awful shit. People get addicted to just about anything."

“Just...not now, huh? Just let me enjoy this.”

A pause. “Okay, Trev.”

And enjoy this, Trevor does, too much for his own damn good.

A few miles from town, where the rolling green of Tongva rises up into the cliffs of Chapparal, Catherine all but blackmails him into stopping at one of those roadside farmer’s markets. The kind with the little signs that declare everything “fresh-picked” and “pesticide-free”. It’s so southern San Andreas, he can hardly stand it. 

But even though he wants to put as much distance between them and Los Santos as possible, when she pats that oversized sunhat down onto her curls and flits off, big white dog trailing along behind her, he knows he’d be an idiot not to follow suit.

“Eugh...they’ve been sitting out in the sun," Catherine says with a crinkled nose when he presents her with a watermelon. She’s shoveling what appear to be green beans into a brown paper bag. “Watermelon is only good cold.”

“If that’s what you think, then you’re in for a real treat, missy.”

Catherine points to the little handwritten sign. "Look how expensive they are, though."

Trevor dismisses the notion with a disgusted noise.

"What?" she demands, still filling the bag. “I wanna cook this stuff, I’ll pay for it.”

“Yeah, but I’m gonna enjoy the fruits of that labor, no pun intended."

Catherine laughs. "Oh, you are, are you? Who says I’m not just getting these to take home to _ my _ house?”

Something about that sits weird in Trevor’s gut.

"Your shit isn't even moved yet. You gonna stay in an empty house?"

She makes a big show of thinking it over, finger to her chin, gold watch glinting in the sun, and Trevor wants to kiss the red off her lips. 

"Not if you're inviting me to stay until then,” she murmurs, moving close enough to him that he catches the faintest hint of honeysuckle.

Trevor does kiss her, too quick for his liking, then glares over her shoulder at the guy running the stall when he sees they’re being stared at. The guy stows the look of open confusion he’s wearing, post haste, as do all the other customers. Trevor can't even find it in himself to be all that mad.

After they’ve paid, Trevor cracks the melon open with the knife from his boot and hacks it into chunks. He takes the test bite, then offers some to Catherine from the end of his knife, then to Gus. They eat the entire thing that way, her sitting on the curb and him standing alongside, Gus ever watchful at the edge but still enjoying attention from strangers. 

The watermelon is so superbly sweet and juicy that Catherine retracts her opinion on the need for refrigeration. Trevor’s transfixed by the juice running down her chin, her neck, her arms, leaving little pinkish buds blooming on her sundress.

“Oh,” she says, tugging on the hem of his shirt with her sticky fingers, “check this out.”

Under the shimmer of nectar, Trevor can just barely make out what looks almost like a rash on her throat. He tilts her chin up to get a better look in the sunlight.

“Huh. You allergic to watermelon or somethin’?”

Catherine swats his hand away. “No, it’s from last night.” She looks around in a cartoonish fashion before beckoning him closer. It does funny things to his stomach. And his dick. “From when I had my head down in the pillows.”

He wonders if he’s secretly spying through the eyes of another man when she beams up at him like that from under the brim of her hat, a look that’s all at once excitement and tenderness, her own captivating brand of demure vulgarity. It’s not supposed to be this good, this soon.

A few hours later, Trevor finds her in the driver’s seat when he and Gus clamber back up to the road after stopping by the woods for a piss. 

“I’m gonna get rusty if I don’t practice,” she sing-songs, patting the passenger’s seat.

Gus yips as though commanding him to hurry up, but Trevor is caught up in taking her in, this radiant look of adventure about her. He decides then and there that this image will be remembered, sunk into the wrinkles of his brain as deep as it can go.

He urges her to drive faster, faster, and clutches her hand on the gear shift tighter, tighter, until she shrieks with laughter and he follows suit, unbound and _ alive _.

\--

Little blue-green waves lap at the desolate southern shore of the Alamo Sea, made up as much by half-buried shopping carts and cigarette butts as by sand. 

Catherine waits for Michael while Gus leaps and sprints and splashes in the murky lake water, certainly the future recipient of a bath. A long way away, on a ramshackle pier, stands the only living thing Catherine can make out (a fisherman) other than the occasional Greater Spotted Three-Faced Pelican. Alone. Perfect.

Their text chain started early this morning while Catherine and Wade sat at the rickety card table - her with a cup of coffee and the latest edition of the _ Senora Beacon. _ Well, _ she _ sat while Wade slept, slumped over on the comics page in a puddle of drool, his presence mandated by Trevor so that he could spend the day running some “errands” with Ron that Catherine’s sure she doesn’t want to know about.

Even her phone buzzing on the table, jittering the dishes, wasn't enough to wake Wade up.

** _Beach by the Boat House restaurant, 11:30_ **

** _Come alone_ **

_ Tell me something only the real Michael De Santa would know _

_ Then we'll see _

** _Let's see_ **

** _You're scared of tomatoes _ **

** _*tornadoes_ **

_ Hmm _

_ I will consider your proposal _

At 11:45, sunlight reflecting off a distant windshield alerts Catherine to Michael's arrival. She stands, brushing sand off the back of her dress, as Michael climbs out of his car, Mr. Cool in his aviators and crisp grey suit. So out of place here that it makes her laugh.

"Halt, who goes there?" she calls to him, and Michael cups his hands around his mouth to shout back, "Delta Sierra, requesting permission to approach."

Catherine nods loftily and Michael makes his way over from the abandoned parking lot, tottering down the dunes, cursing when he gets brambles stuck to his slacks. Once he's within earshot, he spreads his arms wide and looks around with a smirk. 

"What a dump, huh?"

"Nice to see you too, Mikey."

He stops a couple feet away, but at the moment, Catherine could do with a hug. Michael doesn't complain when she squeezes him around the middle, even rubbing a few circles into her back.

"How ya holdin' up, kid?" He asks when they part. 

"Oh, you know, just another day in paradise." 

Gus prances over and sniffs Michael's fist, but decides he's not as interesting as chasing shiners up and down the shoreline.

Michael points after him. "When'd _ he _ show up, just out of curiosity?"

"Trevor went and picked him up yesterday morning- ah, shoot, I gotta call Franklin and say thanks."

"I'm guessin' T didn't mention any of the, uh...goings-on night before last."

Michael's being cagey, carefully watching her expression. Catherine crinkles her nose at him as he lights a cigarette, declines one of her own.

"No, and whatever's going on with you three, I don't want to know."

Michael's eyebrows shoot up. "I see. Plausible deniability?"

"Something like that."

Michael takes a long drag, lets it out.

"Well, that's up to you, Cath, but listen here." He taps the ash. "He ain't on spectacular terms with the rest of us at the moment. I'd get outta there and wash your hands of the whole thing if I was you."

Catherine doesn't know how to respond, so she makes a vague noise of acknowledgement.

Then, Michael says casually, “I was wonderin’ what was up with the whole ‘staying in Trevor’s trailer’ situation anyway.”

Catherine wonders just how far he’s going to push this before she more or less _ has _ to admit she’s been sleeping with his best friend. Maybe that's his game here.

_ This far, no further, _ her rational side dictates. _ He's not your dad. You don't have to tell him shit. _

"Well, where the hell am I supposed to go? Only hotel in a ten mile radius was featured on last week's episode of 'San Andreas' Most Haunted'." She checks on Gus, more out of a desire to have something to look at that isn’t the man in front of her. "Besides, I just put down a deposit on a _ house _, Michael, I'm broke as shit."

She can feel him evaluating her and she’s pretty glad that Michael is damn good at his job but is otherwise kind of oblivious.

"You wouldn't'a been stayin' at the Von Crastenburg if you couldn't afford it, I don't think," he notes. Then, a little more sternly, "You coulda let me take care of it."

"You've taken care of me quite enough, but thank you." Catherine pats Michael's arm, grateful for the break in his interrogation. "I really do appreciate it."

"I just...I had to lay low there with him for a couple weeks last year - long story - and I wouldn't even wish it on the guy I was hidin' from." Michael shudders and Catherine is sympathetic.

"It's not so bad now. I cleaned it up a little."

But Michael still doesn't let up. "Trevor kept his hands off you?"

The heat is rising to her face now, and there’s a noise that sounds a little like choking on her own spit, because that's exactly what's happening. She digs her toes into the wet sand, distracting herself with the rough sensation on the bottoms of her feet.

"Don't worry about it, okay? I'm good. I'm fine.”

Michael waits for an old beachcomber with a metal detector to amble by. Catherine can’t help but smile when he leans into her a little, protective even as he continues to smoke his cigarette nonchalantly and looks down at her mostly-buried feet.

"Well, look, this is the real reason I came," he says once the coast is clear, fishing around in his coat pocket. 

Catherine gets taken back to when he gave her the note from Niko and she cried in front of the three of them like an idiot. Michael hands her a business card with a cartoon moving truck printed on it. 

"Lester hooked us up with these guys. They're gonna have your stuff packed and ready to go by tomorrow. It’s all on the house.” He points to the number printed at the bottom. “You just gotta tell 'em where to take it."

Catherine turns the card over in her hands, staring through it. “Really?”

“Sure.” 

“On the books?”

“On the books.” He tilts his head. “Well, as on the books as _ we _ can get.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “Why?”

Michael barks a laugh. “What, you fishin’ for compliments now? We just wanted to make sure you got settled in alright, okay? Is that _ acceptable, _ ma’am?”

“‘We’? Lester cares about this?”

“Okay, you got me, kid. I put him up to it.” He puts out his hands in defense. “But hey, we needed someone we could trust, right?”

Catherine turns away enough that she can modestly slip the card into her bra. She regards Michael then, quite sure she’ll never fully figure him out.

“Thank you, Mikey. Really.”

He nods and grounds his cigarette into the sand, signaling that it’s time to go. Then, when they start for the parking lot:

“Kid, what happened to your _ neck?_”

\--

Trevor hasn't visited the clinic since that little..._ incident _ with the Aztecas at the lab left him with a nasty muzzle burn (but a cool scar) on his hand. Even at that, he only went to have it looked at so Chef would shut up about it. And he’d gone alone.

This time, though, he has Catherine on his arm, turning heads even in the tiny waiting room. She doesn't let go of his hand (coincidentally, the one with the cool scar) the whole time they sit in the arthritis-inducing plastic chairs, inspecting it from every possible angle while Trevor just observes.

"Long life-line," she notes, prodding his palm. “Oh, and this one means you have a very successful love life.”

He snorts. “Oh, sure, and this one measures parallel parking ability.”

It's as good a time as any, so she asks him all sorts of questions, like which tattoo he'd get rid of if he had to choose - he isn't surprised to hear she'd have the White Zombie logo on her calf lasered off - and when he says he'd rather die, she mimics shooting him with finger guns.

She asks him when he started getting grey hairs, runs her fingers through and counts them.

She asks him if he's ever met a band (if she counts him knocking Willie McTavish’s gold tooth out), what was the first album he ever bought (_Sheer Heart Attack, _ Queen, 1977, age twelve), were the Misfits better with or without Danzig (definitely with).

It's jarring, and Trevor has a hard time keeping up, but he enjoys being lost in her world, in her ways of thinking, until the nurse sticks her head out from the back and calls his name. Catherine is reluctant to let go of his hand.

“Don’t worry, sweet pea,” Trevor chuckles. “I’ll come back to ya just the same, minus a little blood.”

“You’d better.” Catherine tucks into a magazine. “And don’t let that nurse manhandle you too much. I need all your bits in working order.”

Trevor’s never been more content to be pricked, swabbed, and yes, manhandled.

\--

It's over a hundred degrees out and Michael's one over par, so he doesn't hear the question the first time Franklin asks it.

"Mike, dog, you hear me?"

"Fuck, sorry, man." He takes off his visor and wipes his damp forehead on his sleeve. "I was just imagining where I'd bury you if you got another birdie. What'd you say?"

Franklin doesn't smile at the joke. It makes Michael nervous.

"I asked how Catherine was. You went to talk to her, right?"

Michael takes his time perfecting his stance, lining up his shot while he thinks of how to phrase it.

"I dunno, man, it's all so fuckin' weird. She had no idea what I was talkin' about. I don't think Trevor told her anything. The money, Niko, the fucking _ car chase_. Nothin'."

Franklin chews on this a minute, watching the older man waste both of their time with all this show. He's just gonna double-bogey it anyway.

“Well, maybe they ain’t really on speakin’ terms. I mean, if he just shows up to guard her room…”

"That’s the weirdest part, she hasn't been stayin' in a motel. He somehow coerced her into stayin' with _ him_. In his _ trailer_."

Franklin blinks. “You sure he ain’t _ force _ her?”

"Oh, Jesus, Franklin, I don't wanna think about that." 

Michael straightens up, and Franklin wonders if the man’s going to break out a fucking protractor. 

“She was alone when I talked to ‘er, I made sure’a that. And she didn't act like she was bein' coerced into anything."

Franklin weighs the pros and cons of saying what he’s thinking, what he’s been thinking since the minute Trevor and Niko met.

"I think- and it pains me to fuckin' say this, dog, but...I think Trevor _ likes _ her."

Michael takes the swing and it misses spectacularly, ricocheting off a tree, then a passing cart, finally landing square in the middle of the water feature.

"Christ alive," he breathes, turning to Franklin with round eyes. "You're right."

Franklin leaves out the part about suspecting, in light of this new evidence, that Catherine might like Trevor, too.

"'Course I'm right. And don't forget to mark that down. Triple bogey."

"Fuck you."

\--

Catherine knows it isn't usually the case, so she's relieved that, just this once, Michael makes good on his word. 

The Wednesday afternoon before she starts at Bolingbroke, two white moving vans with that same cartoon logo creak and hiss to a stop outside the little yellow one-floor house. Route 68, Harmony, San Andreas. Home now. Maybe. The idea will take some getting used to.

Catherine mostly directs the ungainly orchestra - Trevor gets snippy whenever she tries to lift something - but she sneaks some boxes in whenever he’s occupied elsewhere. The movers are tipped and gone before nightfall. There wasn’t much left to move. 

They order a pizza from the only nearby restaurant that delivers and go to their stations, Trevor sitting on the living room floor organizing her books and Catherine in the kitchen doing the same with the few surviving dishes. Trevor takes his time, cringing at titles like _ Secured Transactions Law Reform _ and _ Theoretical Criminology: An Integrative Approach_. 

Gus lays on his side nearby, and his tail thumps the hardwood once or twice every time Trevor reaches over to pet him. How far they’ve come. Catherine’s playing that old-timey music she likes on her phone, the type that got sung into tin cans, and there’s a nice breeze through the windows she opened.

Damn good way to spend an evening, if you’re in the mood for it. Trevor is not.

"You ok in there?" Catherine calls from the kitchen after a while. "You're being awfully quiet."

"Yeah, sweet pea. Just, y’know.”

“Yeah?”

Trevor sighs. “It's gonna take some adjustment."

"What is?"

She's distracted, only half there, or else she'd pick up on what he's getting at. 

“Whaddya mean, ‘what is’?” Trevor's tone doesn’t border on irritated - it crosses in and sets up camp. He shoves books onto the shelves in front of him. "We've been around each other twenty-four-seven for weeks. I was kinda starting to _ like _ not having an empty space in my bed.”

Catherine sets down the stack of plates in her arms and comes into the living room to kneel behind him, pulling him against her chest. Her voice is quiet, understanding. "You're right. It's gonna be lonely out here by myself.” She holds him tighter and rests her cheek on his back. “I don't want to leave.”

Trevor shifts and Catherine lets go. He scrutinizes her over his shoulder. "So don't."

She laughs and avoids his eyes. His frown deepens.

“I’m serious. You keep sayin' you don't wanna go, yet here we are unpacking all your shit.”

Catherine stands and backs away a bit, and Trevor can see by the roundness of her eyes that he's overwhelming her, but he can't stop himself. He is his own unstoppable force and his own immovable object.

"Trev, I, I just signed a lease.” She starts wringing her hands. It makes Trevor’s stomach turn, revolting against him. “I mean, I'm not exactly clairvoyant here. I wasn't really expecting this to happen. I wasn’t expecting, you know, _ you._”

He drops the book he’s holding with an imposing _ thud _and stands, his joints popping in defiance. "You've seen the shit we get into and you think I can't get you out of a lease?” He scoffs. “C’mon, don't insult me.”

Catherine gets that shrewd look, the one that says she’s had enough of his shit.

"Well how about this, then. I live five minutes away from Bolingbroke. You live _ forty_-five minutes away."

"So what's the problem? Paying for gas? Having to wake up earlier? _ What?_”

She scrubs the fingertips of one hand into her temple. Trevor can’t believe he’s actively chasing her away again. He crosses his arms, squeezes himself, and feels that _ urge. _ The one that starts with a glass pipe and always ends with a big mess to clean up.

The doorbell rings. Saved by a pizza delivery guy.

Catherine heads for the door, stops at her purse for cash, and turns back to Trevor. He can hear the relief she’s trying to hide in her voice. "I'm not sure, but, look, I think we should talk about this later.”

Trevor only grunts, hoping she’ll forget altogether. 

Too exhausted to do any more furniture arranging, they set the couch cushions right on the floor and, since the TV didn’t survive the Pegorinos’ wrath, just sit and talk and eat off of paper plates. Trevor’s little hissy fit from earlier doesn’t come up, and it nags at the back of his mind, because he wants to tell her he feels bad, but he doesn’t want to darken the mood again. Catherine saves him the trouble.

“Look, I’ve been thinking,” she says as she pulls another slice from the box. Trevor waits for the rest, but apparently there isn’t any more - Catherine just disappears into the kitchen, rummages through something he can’t see, and returns with a silver ring holding one house key. The spare.

Trevor stops in mid-swig of his beer and searches her face. “You sure?”

Catherine drops the key into his other hand and closes up his fingers around it.

“Yes, Trev, just, y’know.” She gives him a wry smile. “Don’t make me regret it.”

_ For some inexplicable, irrational reason, I trust you, _ she’d implied, and Trevor’s been tasked with protecting people’s _ lives _ and he _ still _ doesn’t know if he’s ever been trusted like this. It settles on his shoulders like a barbell - a whole lot of fucking responsibility. 

That weight lingers with him, even as they lean on each other and go through a shoebox of Catherine’s old pictures. He sifts through polaroids, three-by-fives, and the occasional studio shot, and there are quite a few standouts; A round-faced newborn with a head full of wild, black-brown curls, drowning in a sea of white ruffles and clutched in the arms of a beaming woman who could be Catherine, except with hazel eyes and those unmistakable 80’s bangs. 

A stocky, clean-shaven, conventionally handsome sort of guy stands beside them, a walking Irish stereotype with his hands in his trouser pockets and clearly laughing at something someone off-camera said. The timestamp marks it January, 1987 - her christening, Catherine explains, and boy, did _ that _ not have the effect her mother had hoped. Trevor had undergone the fateful psych eval just a couple months earlier.

She eventually made for a knobbly-kneed little kid, sitting on an open tailgate next to her dad with the Del Perro pier sign a neon beacon behind them. She’s dropped a funnel cake down her front and Trevor can almost hear her whining, as well as her dad’s derisive snickering. June, 1991, the summer before the LS riots. Trevor was busy losing his best friend to family life.

Somewhere along the chronological line, when Catherine’s about shoulder height to her similarly tiny mother, Trevor can see the point when her father left for prison. Catherine starts wearing a smile Trevor doesn't recognize on her, but one that’s plastered all over his own old photos - something tired in the eyes that says "There's something missing. Something’s broken and I don't know how to fix it, and all of these assholes around me think they know what I need, and I have to keep pretending so that they'll leave me alone.”

It’s some ungodly time of night when they make it to the bottom of the pile of memories, where Catherine snatches a manila envelope out of Trevor’s hands with a yelp and goes to toss it in a kitchen drawer.

“_ That’s _ promising,” he purrs, coming up behind her and slipping his arms around her waist as a diversionary tactic. She pushes his prying hands away.

“Ah! The Devil stands stripped of all his brute disguises!” Catherine wails theatrically, wriggling out of his grasp. “Your seductive tactics will not work on me, foul incubus!” 

She takes off down the hallway to her as-yet bare bedroom, startling the dog awake. Trevor gives chase and finds her already undressing; he skids to a stop when her bra comes flying out of the bathroom. 

“At least, not before a shower," she bargains, and it's a price that Trevor's more than willing to pay. 

They do a lot more making out than getting clean. Trevor skims his hands down the front of her, relishing in how slick her soft, smooth skin is. One stays high at her breast, rubbing his thumb over her nipple, and the other goes low, finding her already soaking wet. He gets this tightness in his ribs, this tingling at the base of his skull that comes with knowing that _ this _ woman wants _ him _ to touch her, to fuck her, and it’s an electric sensation he knows no amount of crystal could replicate.

Catherine moans for him as he slips a finger down her slit and strokes her, his teeth bothering at her nape. She feels him hard and insistent at the small of her back and wonders if he's ever actually been soft. 

"Feels...god, Trevor, that feels so _ good _."

Trevor responds with a hum, bites down a little harder, teases her entrance with a second fingertip. When he presses it in, she bucks and hisses in a breath, stiffening, and Trevor pulls his hands away to rest on her hips.

“_ That _ wasn’t a good sound.” His voice is little more than a rumble over the thundering of the shower. 

Catherine whines, closing her hands over Trevor’s. "Sorry, I'm still a little sore from the hotel. And from all the moving.” She turns and smiles up at him weakly. “But it’s okay. I’ll be okay, if you still want to-” 

Trevor doesn't miss a beat. "I’ll survive, sweet pea.” 

Her look of relief fills him with shame for the types of degenerate fucking excuses for men that make women feel like they need to capitulate to them just because their dicks are hard. He guides their hips and foreheads together, pauses to really let himself feel her against him and the hot water beating down on their heads, before he reaches behind her and turns the water off.

“Wh-”

“Come on.”

He doesn't bother to dry off before leading Catherine by the hand to her bed. She goes for the box at the foot of it that has her sheets in it. 

“Here, let me-”

“Just lay down, willya?”

Her eyes are big as she does, like she doesn’t want to blink and miss anything. Trevor’s sinewy body, his hair sticking out in all directions, his erection straining and begging for release, all still dripping wet, are really, _ really _ doing it for her. She lets out an involuntary squeal when he hooks her legs and hauls her closer to where he’s lying on his stomach.

"You sure you're not too tired?" she asks, voice wavering.

"What, to make you come?” Trevor chuckles, and his breath makes her jump. “I wanted to do that the second I saw you.”

Catherine puts a hand to his stubbled cheek, and he can see hers getting pink. "Ugh, where have you _ been _ all my life?”

“Waitin’ on you, sweet pea.”

Then he dips his head.

Trevor explores her with his mouth, being an absolute tease and just running his lips and occasionally his tongue over the delicate skin just outside the most sensitive spots. She jerks and gasps when he nips at one of her labia, giggles nervously at her own reaction. He laughs too, a warm, low sound so different from his usual. 

"Doin' okay?"

"God, yes. Please don't stop."

Trevor rests his palms on the undersides of her thighs as he gets to work, keeping her legs up and open for him, rubbing his thumbs so gently over her skin, back and forth. He keeps up the tease, swirling his tongue around and around her clit but never actually touching it, preferring to dip it inside her and let out little hums of satisfaction that rumble against her quivering skin.

Catherine's been eaten out before, sure, usually as a thirty-second pretense. This isn't even in the same ballpark. Hell, it's not even the same _ game. _Trevor gives a shit. When she squirms and makes noise, he keeps doing whatever it was that made her do that.

By the time he gives up the torturing and his tongue actually brushes against her clit, there might as well be visible sparks jumping off at the contact, because it sends a paralyzing jolt straight up her spine. He looks like he's absolutely loving it, too, and god, does that make it harder to hold out. Never has a man treated her like this. Never, ever, ever.

"Trev-Trevor," she squeaks, gripping his hair with both hands, digging her nails into his scalp, "god, fuck, keep going-"

Trevor seems to lose focus at her little plea, his tempo staggering, and when Catherine opens her eyes to check on him, he's started stroking himself. Quick, frenzied pumps that twist at the end, tormenting the head. Her mouth waters immediately. Never partial to it previously, Catherine’s never wanted to suck dick so badly in her entire life.

That’s what pulls the trigger. That's what lets the flood loose, a scorching spiderweb of rapture that scrabbles up her insides to dissolve her brain into liquid dopamine. Her voice breaks up and her cry verges on a shout, a long, hoarse _ ah _that echoes off the empty walls and sounds foreign to her own ears.

Trevor rides it out with her, sucking her clit until he’s sure she’s wrung every ounce of pleasure from it. Then he scrambles to his knees, kneeling between hers. 

"Can I - fuck - can I come on you, sugar?"

"Yes, baby, come for me, please-"

He doesn't need any further prompting. Two more strokes and - "fuckmefuck_me-_" - Trevor's shooting _ hard _ in thick stripes up her belly, reaching as far as her collarbone. He catches himself on one arm, gripping his cock as the last few drops spill out and over his fist.

"Jesus. Fuckin’ incredible," Trevor pants, then lifts his head to look at her, take in her heaving, glistening, come-spattered chest. "And we didn't even fuck." He leans down to kiss her parted lips, but just for a second since neither of them have caught their breath. "Mmm, what'd you think, darlin’? Enjoy yourself?"

Catherine runs her hands down her red face while she nods vigorously. "I hope I last longer next time, because I could let you do that for _ hours, _ my _ god. _" She grabs for Trevor’s arm when he moves carefully off the bed to get them a towel. “Can you- I mean, do you want to- um, stay the night?”

He looks at her funny. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Ugh, I don’t know.” Catherine hides behind her hands again. “No one’s ever- I mean-”

Trevor pulls her arms away with his clean hand and looks her right in the eye. As though he knows exactly what she needs to hear, he says firmly, “I want to be where you are.”

Catherine has to cover her face again, to hide how wet her eyes are getting without her permission.

“You were right,” she mutters, muffled. “This is gonna take some getting used to.”

\--

“What in the hell are _ you _ two assholes doing here?” 

Warden Dalton’s wide eyes dart past the two imposing silhouettes, where he sees his escape route vanish with the locking of his office door.

“How’d you even get _ in?_”

“Ho, what’s with that, huh?” Luca laughs. “That’s how you’re gonna talk to a coupla made guys?” He swaggers over to the ornate display case and notes with a whistle, “Quite the setup you got here, Dalton. Only room in the place that ain’t got cinderblock walls. And the globe bar? Nice touch.”

“Heard your wife made you fire your secretary,” Rafaele taunts. He shares a look with Luca.

“Fuckin’ pussy,” the other man concludes with a shake of his head.

Dalton still looks like a cornered animal, rigid behind his desk, palms flat on the lacquered mahogany to hide his fingers trembling. “Just, just get to the point.”

Rafaele opens his mouth to answer, but Luca jumps in. Raf eyes him warily, images of Dalton’s second-hand guy pissing himself in the dirt flooding back at once. Excessive force.

“See, Warden, that info you gave us on Rowan-”

“No, come on, guys. I _ know _ that’s where she lives. Come on, that’s all I’ve got on her, _ please-_”

Luca points. “Why don’cha have a seat in that fancy leather chair’a yours, huh? The one the hardworkin’ taxpayers so generously bought?”

Dalton starts to hyperventilate. He sinks down to sit, clutching his heart.

“See,” Luca continues, fiddling with some expensive-looking desk toy. “The intel was good, but she ain’t there, chief.”

“Hasn’t been there in weeks, we reckon,” Rafaele adds.

“Put that _ down _,” Dalton blurts. He grabs the gadget out of Luca’s hands. “It’s ferrofluid, and it’s exp-” 

Two threatening glares shut him up until the expectant silence starts him babbling again.

“Why don’t you- I mean, shouldn’t you be able to keep eyes on the place twenty-four-seven?”

Luca hesitates, the idiot, so Raf fills in. Dalton can’t know just how few Pegorinos there are left. No one can know.

“No point. We found some brochures for movers. Our bird has flown the coop.”

“Well what-, what-, what can I possibly tell you about that?” Dalton sputters. “It’s not like she left a, a forwarding address. I mean, shouldn’t you be tearing up the _ movers’ _ office instead of mine?”

Rafaele ignores him, still sore from the argument he had with Phil about that exact thing. Threaten the moving service, Raf suggested, they keep records of this shit. But _ no, _ Mrs. Pegorino wants them to bother the warden again, so here they are. Absolute shitshow.

“She was real friendly with one of the guards here,” Raf manages. “We think you know who we’re talking about.”

The warden leaps at the chance, just like Raf knew he would, the weasel. “Oh, Ph- uh, Phil. No, no, uh-”

There’s the tinkle of something breaking from behind them. Colorful shards lay at Luca’s feet.

“Hey now, come on, that was one-of-a-kind Tutsi pottery from my hunting trip!”

“Sorry,” Luca grins.

Raf sighs and snaps his fingers in the old man’s face. 

“Uh, oh, uh- Peter! That was his name! Peter something-”

Luca’s gotten into the globe bar now. He finds the most expensive-looking bottle and drops it. 

“Some- some Jew name, goddammit, just let me find the employee file!” Dalton springs for his computer, grumbling. “No goddamn secretary...mafia thugs…”

“Too fuckin’ easy,” Luca croons as the warden types away. “Y’know, Dalton, we usually have to pull guns on guys to get this shit. Break their kneecaps and what have ya.”

“Yeah, but then they probably don’t have entire _ careers _ on the line. Alimony to pay, not to mention the goddamn child support, the taxes on my boat alone are-” Dalton cuts himself off again and gets back to work at Rafaele’s meaningful look. 

The _ capo _ taps his watch. “Much as I love watching my associate wreck your shit, I'd rather have just the one body to hide today."

\--

It’s the toothbrush’s fault, really.

Catherine’s fast asleep within seconds of getting the sheets on the bed, only after reluctantly agreeing to keep Gus out. Trevor, still going over and over their semi-argument in his head, elects to finish off the twelve-pack instead of crawling in next to her. Gus doesn’t seem to mind the company, anyway.

He seriously considers finding out what’s in that manila envelope, but he feels the spare house key in his pocket and decides against it.

Trevor’s lost in space as he brushes his teeth with her extra toothbrush, thinking about how he’s never had his own toothbrush at anyone’s place before. Thinking about how it would feel if some other asshole ever kept _ his _ own toothbrush here. Thinking about how it would feel if said other asshole was _ Niko Fucking Bellic_.

His brain cuts him off at the pass, the same way it knocks you out if you feel too much pain. _ Don’t even consider it, _ it warns him, _ Don’t even consider a parallel universe where that has even the slightest chance of happening. Stop shortening the countdown, you fucking moron. _

Toothpaste running down his chin, Trevor’s formulating ways to tell her that he wants his toothbrush to be the only one in the cup beside hers when his phone buzzes next to the sink. Texts from Ron.

** _might want to lay low._ **

** _guy with a funny accent asking for u._ **

Trevor knows what he has to do.

At the first sign of sunrise, he wakes her. He hasn’t slept.

“Rise 'n shine, sweet pea, pack your shit. We’re goin’ to Mexico.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to [coldbluestar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldbluestar/pseuds/coldbluestar), [uygirlfriend](https://yellowrutherford.tumblr.com/), [dandyqueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandyqueen/pseuds/dandyqueen), [real_fanta_sea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/real_fanta_sea/pseuds/real_fanta_sea), and all the others who continue to lift me up with their comments, messages, art (?!?), and by writing stories that amaze and inspire me. 
> 
> I stuck a bit of my own art in here, hope that isn't too pathetic.

"'Member, Cathy", Charlie Rowan once instructed his daughter from the bottom of a bottle, "Ev'rything -_ every single fuckin’ thing, _no matter how good it starts out - goes t' shit eventually."

He'd chuckled acidly at his own non-joke, but even aged at single digits, Catherine sensed it was nothing to laugh about.

Her first lesson on the subject came on a clear spring day as she walked home from school, hopping up on the curb and back down again, kicking pebbles and picking dandelions, navy school cardigan tied around her waist and dirt on her knees from crawling around after bugs at recess (Ma would complain, but Dad would stand up for her if he wasn’t unconscious).

It took her a moment to comprehend, but her legs turned to water, and her stomach to a lead weight that sunk down through them, when she saw it from several yards away. Even in the blinding sunshine, she could make out that ginger crew cut, turned fiery orange by the harsh light, ablaze against the back of the black-and-white car he was bent over.

Her father was being arrested.

Catherine can still feel the sun's sting in her eyes, the pricks of sweat under her starched uniform collar, the bile at the back of her throat, the bundle of dandelions and buttercups slipping from her fingers. Her own cries still ring in her ears some fifteen years later whenever she so much as hears a cop car - “Ma! Ma! Why’re they taking him? _Why are they taking_ _him?_”

“Catherine Erin, be _ quiet, _ you’re making a scene,” her mother scolded, gripping her daughter's wrist much too hard. 

All these years later, it strikes Catherine as ironic. The neighbors were already gathered in their yards. Dogs were yapping at the commotion. A Weazel news van was stationed nearby, an anchor in a red pantsuit commentating as her father did his uncoordinated best to shove and shout the officers away - his best friends, men who had raised Catherine just as much as he had, men who were just trying to afford him some shred of dignity by keeping their lights off and their voices low - and _ Catherine _ was the one making a scene?

“See, Cathy, baby, this’s what’m talkin’ about!” Charlie bellowed as they tried to stuff him in the backseat. 

She couldn't see his face clearly, but she knew it would be ruddy and bleary-eyed. Her mother held her in place with iron fingers that left welts in their wake. 

The last words she heard in her father's voice rose up despite the chaos: "Everything goes to shit, an' don't you ever fuckin' forget it!"

And forget it, she did not. 

Catherine remembered it when she saw her father's fate passed down to him from the jury on the evening news - accomplice to the murders of Officers Eddie Pulaski and Jimmy Hernandez, racketeering, corruption, narcotics distribution, planting evidence. Guilty, 25 years to life. 

Catherine remembered it whenever her mother's begrudging restraint wore thin and she took up the now-vacant role of the disciplinarian. Catherine remembered it when she was dating the men’s tennis coach in college and then walked in on him fondling one of her teammates. Catherine remembered it when Niko told her to go back home, and when she found his goodbye - a stupid note on a stupid piece of paper, the absolute coward - on her kitchen table.

The rational part of her knew - knows - that there’s no way that _ everything _ good crashes and burns. It’s just not statistically possible. Surely the slurred words of a convicted felon weren’t the soundest. Surely that felon was the common denominator of all of the problems he blamed on the world.

But that petrified little seven-year-old still stands under the eaves of the tiny house, rabbit heart trembling. She nags at the back of Catherine’s mind whenever things start looking up. 

Her father's words supersede the rational, chew it up and swallow. Everything goes to shit eventually.

\--

Catherine goes round and round the rooms of her house, hastily emptying boxes of clothes onto the bed, onto the couch, a whimpering Gus at her heels. She stuffs whatever she can get her hands on into a plastic Binco bag. Trevor leans on the doorframe of her bedroom, distracting himself with his phone. 

The whole thing strikes her as surreal, and Trevor has walled himself off again, further demonstrating his uncanny skill at having the world's worst timing. Catherine has chewed her cuticles to shreds. 

“What, what about Gus? I can’t just leave him.”

Trevor types away, not bothering to look up, as though the bags under his eyes - they certainly look heavier than they did last night - weigh them down. He sounds bored when he grunts, “I got someone in mind.”

Catherine stops on her way out of the bathroom, arms full of toiletries. “Not Wade.”

Trevor’s face sours and he finally makes eye contact. 

“What the fuck’s wrong with Wade?” He seems to reconsider. “I mean, aside from the obvious.”

Catherine just keeps frowning. Trevor's lanky arms go out to his sides.

"Well he can't go to Ron's, nervous bastard's terrified of the things."

"Oh, _ now _ we suddenly care how Ron feels? Y'know, that's awfully conven-"

“Alright, al_ right, _ I’ll take ‘im to Maude’s, fuck.” He throws his arms up and Catherine can see the sweat soaking into the armpits of his shirt. “There, ya happy now?”

No, Catherine decides, she is not. She dumps the stuff in her arms onto the bed with force, and the clattering of plastic bottles brings both Gus and Trevor to attention.

"Trevor, I start a new job on Monday. I can_ not _ afford to-"

The doorjamb creaks as Trevor pushes off it, leaving a boot-shaped scuff of mud on the pristine wood that Catherine knows will have to be painted over. "I know that, alright? Jesus H. _ Christ_, you won't let me fuckin' forget it.” 

Only then, when Catherine flinches, does Trevor seem to notice the uneasy atmosphere he's creating. He pockets his phone and puts comforting, if restless, hands on Catherine's shoulders. He doesn't like the way she withdraws, but it's so slight that he might have imagined it.

“Look, if things don't calm down by Monday, Lester'll take care of it, alright?” Then Trevor swats her on the ass and jabs a thumb toward the front door. “Now please, sweet pea, darlin', Catherine, get a fuckin' move on, because we ain't got much time."

The problem is, Catherine doesn't believe him.

He's letting her pack, for one. Even though he's clearly wired (high?), jittering his leg and tearing up his knuckle with his canines, he doesn't rush her after that.

If the Pegorinos are as close as Ron's texts claim, Catherine suspects she and Trevor would have been well beyond the border by now. But she saw the timestamp when Trevor showed her the messages - he'd read them hours ago.

Maude is delighted to see them, and that takes some of the edge off. She does the unthinkable and rises from her station, where Catherine imagines she planted herself long enough ago that she'd grown roots.

"Well if you ain't the prettiest thing I ever did see! Like a little doll!"

Trevor grunts and taps an impatient foot in the sand. He holds out the bag of Bishop's he brought her as a down payment. "Yeah, she gets that a lot. Look, can you keep the fuckin' mutt or not?"

"Well sure I can!" Maude croons, ruffling Gus' fur while he writhes and yips with excitement. "I got some bounties could use your nose, don't I, boy?"

Catherine still hasn't stopped mulling things over when they stop to pick up Chef on the way to the airfield. From up on the balcony, the poor man looks just as distraught behind his smudged-up glasses as Catherine did when Trevor barks that same command at him: "Pack your shit, we're goin' to Mexico!" 

Catherine waits in the Bodhi, knotting and unknotting the ribbon on her sunhat while her mind churns. Trevor would definitely be bragging up a storm if the 'someone with a funny accent' were one of the various multinational criminal organizations that want his head on a stick. 

Something about this will not leave Catherine alone, not even when Trevor and his sidekick emerge from the liquor store, the latter hefting an overstuffed black duffel on each shoulder. There's definitely more than clothes in there, and any explanation she'd hoped to get from Chef never comes. He won't even meet her glance and barely returns her greeting (though that in itself isn't alarming).

He shoves his luggage into the truck bed and hoists himself up, muttering, "And you wanna bring a cop. To a meth deal. A cop."

"Don't you fucking call her that."

Five hours later, after a less-than-legal flight in Trevor's cramped Cuban, Trevor is doing two things he hates: one, sitting around, and two, sitting around at the beach. To make it all worse, he's surrounded by tourists (another thing he hates), who are openly staring at him (just add that to the list). 

It could have something to do with the fact that he's fully clothed in the type of wet, sticky heat he thought he'd escaped by moving to LS, getting uncomfortably crispy because he scoffed at the sunscreen Catherine offered him. 

Worse than being stared at is the fact that they're also staring at _ her _ and Trevor has had just about enough of it. He envisions slinging her over his shoulder and making for the hotel she'd picked for them, a luxe four-star deal that Trevor had had to swindle their way into. It was an atonement she'd demanded for the sudden upheaval, and after she saw the ramshackle motel he'd hired back when it was just he and Chef making the trip.

The things he does for her, Trevor thinks with a grunt. But she's out in the tide in the ruffly white bikini he bought her, another form of penance she'd bidden, and he knows he can't complain. That little minx can be downright demanding when she wants to be. And Trevor's found that, when Catherine gets what she wants, he usually does too.

Catherine probably can’t comprehend the miracles of patience Trevor’s performing over here. Patience that flies completely out the window when some over-muscled, under-brained sightseer strides right up to Catherine as she's standing in the surf taking pictures of passing sailboats with Trevor's phone.

Trevor can't hear what the guy is saying, but Catherine's crinkled nose tells Trevor all he needs to know. As he stalks up, getting deserts' worth of sand in his boots, he sees two things that jar him. One, the guy already has a woman on his arm, and two, there's a hotel room keycard in her outstretched hand.

"Get the fuck outta here," Trevor snarls from behind them, and all three of them recoil. "She ain't interested."

Meathead opens his mouth to fire back but snaps it shut just as quick when Trevor raises his shirt and flashes the pistol tucked into his waistband.

The things he does for her.

Once the interlopers have fled, Catherine clings to his arm with both of hers, and Trevor is glad to be her safety net. He finds that sharing the edge of the world with her feels a lot better than watching her do it alone.

Catherine's words are muffled on account of her face nuzzled into his sleeve.

"Y'know, I haven't gone to the beach since I was a kid, and I really wanted it to, I don't know," she gestures vaguely, "wow me."

"And then you get approached by fuckin' swingers. Aww, life's so hard for pretty girls, ain't it." Trevor muses, and laughs when she elbows him. "C'mon, sweet pea, let's get lost before _ el puerco _ shows up. No bail here, not even for pretty girls."

\--

\--

It actually rains more in the desert than people think. 

There’s this smell everything gets whenever that truce is broken between sand and sky, every few months or so. Catherine remembers it well, from when she lived with her mother in the rusty old trailer park in Bone County. The old folks called it-

“God’s perfume,” she sighs, stretching back and taking in a deep breath, deep enough to burn in her lungs. It’s approximately nine thousand degrees out and the metal balcony railing burns her palms, but, just like in Sandy Shores, there's a peace about it. Like, with Trevor here, there's no chance of anyone or anything getting her. 

She’s getting lost in the swaying fields of goldpoppies beyond the city limits when Trevor’s arms wrap around her middle and he stoops to rest his chin on her shoulder.

“Which god? Is that some kinda Catholic nonsense?” He buries his face in her neck until she giggles, and takes in a deep breath of his own, filtered through her coffee-dark hair. “You’ll be happy to know that your perfume smells better than his.”

Even in the heat, they spend a drowsy afternoon tangled up in each other, naked except for the bedsheet, alternating between dozing and providing their own hammy voice-overs for whatever telenovela is playing on TV. When night falls, Trevor announces that it’s safe to venture out into the city.

By ten, after some traipsing around the neighborhood which involved making themselves sick on churros, they’re situated across from each other at a tiny table in the street. Outside the lively little open-air cafe, long after the other tourists have returned to their hotels, their laughter is drowned out by the laughter of dozens of others, altogether fit to beat the four-piece band. 

Their debate over which actor best portrayed Impotent Rage dies down and Catherine swirls what’s left of the unnaturally-colored concoction in her glass with her finger. Trevor watches keenly as she sucks a drop of mezcal off and longs painfully to taste it from her lips but doesn’t want to draw any more attention to her than she’s already getting.

“Trev.”

“Yeah, sugar.”

“Did you ever…” She considers and reconsiders. “Have you forgiven Michael?”

Trevor leans back with a dismissive _ pshhh_, crossing one ankle over his knee and throwing an arm over the back of his chair. His leg starts bouncing immediately.

Catherine pushes her drink aside and leans forward on her elbows. “No, come on, I’m the one always yapping about my shit. You gotta return the favor at some point, without me having to pump drinks into you.”

He sighs through his nose and his leg bounces harder, shaking the table now. He turns his head to focus on the snazzily-dressed _ músicos _serenading the restaurant.

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. He can feel Catherine’s stare boring holes into the side of his face. “There’s some shit you just don’t forget, you know? Some shit you _ can’t _ forget.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t ask if you forgot. Did you forgive him?”

He stills (so does the table) and looks at her with a flat mask of a face. “Why do you wanna know so bad?”

Catherine rolls her eyes. “Jesus, Trevor, not everyone who wants to know about you wants to use it against you.”

Trevor studies her then, her candid curiosity, and feels himself loosen up. Catherine probably knows by now not to expect ‘I’m sorry’s. He matches her pose, leaning across the table until their elbows touch. Catherine smiles tenderly at that.

“What’s forgiveness? Is it moving on? Acting like nothing ever happened? ‘Cause if that's case-" Trevor glares down at the aged wooden tabletop and wishes he had something sharp to nick at it with. He drums his fingertips on Catherine's arm instead. "Michael ain’t _ ever _ gonna forget what he done to me, not as long as I’m alive.”

She fiddles with his sleeve, fixing the flipped-up hem of it, the conversation clearly not going the way she'd expected. Trevor tries to pump the brakes of a metaphorical car that has none and crashes right into another incendiary question.

“And what about you, huh? You ever forgive your asshole dad?"

She's a lot quicker to answer than Trevor was.

“No, I don’t think so. But hey, according to my parents' religion, it doesn’t matter whether I do or not. Because he has to” - she waggles her fingers and puts on a ghostly tone - “_face God._”

“Bullshit,” Trevor snorts. “Can’t you just do whatever crazy shit you want as long as you sit in the little booth and say enough ‘Our Father’s?”

Her nose wrinkles up in the way that Trevor is dangerously close to adoring.

“Are you kidding me?” She asks through an incredulous laugh. “What do you think I am, _ Roman _ Catholic? Shame on you. I was taught that by the time you committed the sin, it’s already too late.” Her smile falls. “It used to keep me up at night. Wondering how many sins I had left until I wouldn’t be allowed into heaven anymore. If I'd see my dad there.”

Trevor watches the fairy lights dance in the breeze, reflected in her downturned eyes. He wants those eyes on him, so he takes her hand in his across the table and brings it to his mouth, gnawing on _ her _ knuckle for a change.

“I’m pretty sure that if anyone in Los Santos has any hope of going to heaven, it’s you.”

After another paloma, Catherine's ready to dance, but Trevor needs to be a whole lot higher before he'll go along. He watches her twist and sway her way to the crowd gathered at the foot of the stage, and feels profoundly misplaced all of a sudden.

His infant conscience gripes at him. The topic of forgiveness was too timely to be a coincidence.

Trevor fishes the little bit of grapefruit rind out of Catherine's glass and twists it until his hands smell bitter and his eyes sting. It makes it hard to be entertained by that sloppy two-step she does when she's tipsy. But not impossible. 

Catherine's spent a lot of this trip out of his reach, he realizes. Going on about life whether he's standing beside her or not. A better man would feel good about that. Trevor just burns cold, blue as a star, the white dwarf to her blazing sun. Hell, he may as well be in another fucking galaxy.

They stay well into the night, Catherine coming back to the table every so often to check on Trevor, who stews and simmers until the band starts packing up. She must suspect that something's up with him, but he doesn't blame her for not wanting to get into it.

He starts to get sleepy, belly full of cheap beer and paella, and sees a voicemail when he pulls out his phone to check the time.

When Catherine comes over for the last time, sobering up now, she finds Trevor standing, holding out her bag. Another ludicrous stack of bills on the table flutters in the breeze, barely weighed down by Catherine's empty glass.

“Come on, sweet pea, time to head back.”

She looks from his hand up to his face, pouting. She points off into the night, to the streets she'd hoped to keep exploring with him.

“Aw, but I wanted to-”

Trevor can barely keep the anticipation from his voice as he shows her the missed call. “That was the clinic. I’m clean.”

If they got nuked now, blasted apart like Sarah Connor in that one part in _ Terminator 2_, Trevor would die happy and with all his blood in his dick, because the look that Catherine is giving him right now is absolutely _ salacious. _

“Is this all it’s going to be?” Catherine asks between kisses as Trevor jostles her into their room.

Trevor’s pulse is pounding so hard in his ears that he hardly hears her. His mouth works at that magic little spot behind her ear as he huffs, “All what’s gonna be?”

Catherine pauses, half to help Trevor unhook her bra and half so she can think of how to avoid the trap she just laid for herself. Trevor scoffs at the offer of assistance and latches onto her breasts before the bra has even hit the floor between their feet.

“_ Ah- _Just, just fucking and sleeping and eating and fucking again.”

Trevor peers up at her from where his face is buried. Catherine smiles and musses his hair.

“Because that sounds pretty fucking awesome,” she finishes.

Trevor’s instinct is to catch Catherine when she falls to her knees, but her intent is pretty clear in the way she wrestles his fly open and tugs his jeans down his narrow thighs. 

He hears himself groaning in anticipation already, and through his lidded eyes he can see Catherine planning her approach. He can’t say for sure, but he thinks she’s wanted this as much as he has (even if she hasn’t wanted it as long, which isn’t a fair metric, considering he wanted her the second he saw her picture).

She takes him in - as much of him as will fit - so eager it makes him shudder, and reinforces her mouth as Trevor’s favorite part of her body. He’s thought about this exact moment so many fucking times and now that he’s actually faced with it - his cock stained red, his ears awash with her whimpering - he can’t even _ look_. 

The moment he sees, the instant the incredible feeling of his dick stroking the ridges at the back of her throat combines with the visual of her hollowed cheeks and pursed lips and slip of pink tongue, he’s going to come, there’s no way around it. And he doesn’t want to do that until he’s felt her, really felt her, with no damn rubber in the way. He doesn’t want to come unless it’s at the behest of the contours of her velveteen- god don’t think about that.

“_Fuck, _ sugar, that’s-”

Catherine pulls off him with a wet _ pop _. Her low voice makes his legs tense up so fast that he’s in danger of having a charley horse when she looks up and breathes, “Good?”

Trevor can't stop himself from laughing a little at how insane the question is. “God, that’s good, that’s really fuckin’ good-”

He knots all ten fingers in Catherine's dark mass of hair and her responding moan is agonizing, vibrating mercilessly up his shaft and threatening to undo him already. Her free hand slides up his stomach as high as it can reach, looking for contact, and he gives it to her by taking it in his and squeezing it to his heaving chest.

Catherine slips her tongue along the underside of the head, probing at the sponginess of his most sensitive spot, and when he yelps, god help him, she does it harder. Down on her knees, he sees her shifting in that unmistakable way, and there's no way he did anything in his life deserving of a girl who gets wet from giving head. When Catherine gets up at his insistence, Trevor stands utterly transfixed by the tell-tale trail of a single silken drop down her thigh.

"I changed my mind,” he growls, "get on the floor." 

Trevor goes to get a pillow for her hips, and turns back to see her already lying in wait, knees spread and fingers torturing her clit. 

"I don't need that," she breathes, head tossed back and hair wild. "Just come _ on._"

Trevor's cock jumps involuntarily at the sight of her back arched up off the carpet, her thighs quivering. 

"You don't know what you fuckin' do to me." 

He kneels and yanks her hips up to meet his. Catherine hisses at the rugburn, incapable of a coherent response. Trevor strokes her with his tip, smears precome on her until she glistens in the dim light, paralyzing himself with the image. He wishes he hadn’t let himself get so twisted up by those small hands grasping at his shoulders, even though he’s never been bent into more enjoyable shapes in his life. 

"Trev," Catherine urges, squeezing his hips with her thighs, and Trevor almost gets distracted again by the wonderful shade of pink her ears are turning.

She guides him in and the world and all its problems are reduced to firing neurons, dissolved as though by acid in a sea of endorphins. Red-painted nails dig into the taut skin of his forearms, making old track marks burn with little half-moon brands.

“Trev- Trevor, slow, slow down-”

He whines in an unfamiliar voice. “Oh, fuck, baby, come on, _ please-_”

She sedates him with a look, a squeeze, a sigh. “_Please, _ Trevor.”

Her 'please' is, of course, more powerful than his, so powerful that this helpless body made of raw nerve endings can hardly process it. Trevor drops his forehead to her dewy chest and shakes his head, forcing himself to breathe.

“Okay,” he relents after a long moment, “Alright. Alright.”

It takes every cell pulling in the same direction all at once, but Trevor controls his hips, and Jesus, he’s glad he does. It lets him, no, _ forces _ him to feel what he couldn’t feel before - the smallest nuances of her, every crest and valley, every inch seemingly custom-made to drive him to come as hard as possible.

"Trev-"

"I can't go any fuckin' slower, darlin'-"

"No, it's not- it's- um-" 

That pink is turning neon now.

"Christ, what is it?" Trevor just manages to choke out.

Catherine huffs and nudges him off of her, which, Trevor is elated to find, is because she wants to be on top. He scooches eagerly until his back is against the bed frame, wedging the pillow under his bony ass as an afterthought, and makes Catherine giggle with his grabby hands.

She lowers herself onto him, and he bites her shoulder because he has to, because otherwise he would have the neighbors calling the front desk, because all this pent-up energy has to go somewhere other than shooting inside of her. 

Catherine finds his canines gloriously too-sharp. She could have figured Trevor for a biter, a marker of his territory, a gleeful creator of angry bruises and burst blood vessels. A younger Catherine would have been terrified of him, of his hot-blooded, single-minded devotion, and a smarter Catherine still would be.

Trevor finds her calls as soft and sweet as they are desperately, alarmingly arousing. The way she moves, rocking and shuddering, tugging at his hair, she's wholly in control but losing it. Trevor's plan had been to ruin her for anyone else, but it's backfired completely.

He whispers to her as she works, beseeches at the altar of her collarbones. “Catherine...Catherine...Catherine...Catherine...”

"Trev, I'm gonna, fuck, I'm gonna-"

Lightning strikes Trevor directly in the center of his chest when he feels his tip brush her cervix. He _ panics _ and lifts her by the hips exactly one second before he blows his load, so hard that it almost hurts. Trevor hisses in a breath through his teeth while he uses his last few slow strokes to coat her inner thigh and the glimmering wet lips of her pussy.

"No fair," Catherine huffs, equally mesmerized by the sight.

Trevor's neck goes boneless and lets his throbbing head drop to the bed behind him. He's in real danger of falling asleep right here.

"Baby," he pants, "Just gimme, gimme a few minutes here, huh? I think my fucking soul just got extracted through the tip of my dick."

Clearly that's not acceptable. Trevor feels a stir in his softening cock when Catherine slicks up a fingertip in his come and brings herself to orgasm right there on top of him. He stares, dumbfounded, suffering the curse of the refractory period. 

Neither of them know what time it is when they settle in.

"Kinda sad how we've mostly fooled around in hotel rooms, huh?" she asks through a yawn, snuggled in her usual spot on Trevor's chest. He drags his fingertips lazily up and down the length of her back, soothing himself as much as her.

"Hadn't really thought about it," he says with a shrug. "But how in the hell is that _ sad?_"

Catherine props herself up on her elbow so she can look at him.

"I mean, I just...it all feels so..._ unsettled_, you know?" She draws languid patterns in his chest hair. "I can't wait for things to just calm down-"

"That's the least punk thing anyone's ever said."

Catherine scoffs and takes her hand back. "So sue me. What, I'm supposed to _ like _ being chased around the state? I'm supposed to _ enjoy _ not seeing my dog or sleeping in my own bed for a month?"

The sensation that spikes in Trevor's stomach is one he knows but that he can't figure out what the hell it's doing here. Jealousy. He shrugs again, trying to dislodge it.

"Gotta be more exciting than sitting at a desk all day."

Catherine's sitting up now, and Trevor can't help but appreciate her body even as she chastises him.

"What's that supposed to-? I do _ not _ sit at a desk all day, Trevor. You think Dalton got rid of me because I did the bare minimum?"

"Look, forget it, I didn't mean it that way, alright?" He beckons her back into his arms and she only comes after some hesitation. "It's fuck off o'clock and I got shit to do tomorrow."

"Fine, but you're not out of the hot seat, mister."

"Sweet pea, if it means fucking like _ that, _ I’ll nail myself to it.”

\--

Niko knows where Michael lives, he considers. It would be easy enough to make his way back to the gaudy Rockford mansion and put a bullet in the conman's greying head, slurry his lying brain. Bisect his bulky middle and watch his triple-distilled guts slide out onto the foyer tile.

These are the thoughts that keep Niko, running on fumes and shitty gas station coffee, from losing his mind in the desert.

He knows the desert. He wasted his youth scrabbling in the sand for the lofty philosophical goals of men who'd probably never held a gun. And he's probably wasting (his time) now, too.

None of Trevor's neighbors have been any help. Any attempt at communication has garnered him glassy stares or commands to 'go back to Russia'. At first Niko suspected that the rambling collection of metal shacks and the human-husk residents that laughably call it a town may be hiding its top supplier on purpose. Now, he thinks they may be too strung out to even know what he's asking. 

And it all makes Niko wildly angry, angry that Michael would allow that balding speed freak to bring Cath anywhere near here, so angry that he brings his fist down on the dashboard hard enough to hurt and settles back into the comfortable rut of disemboweling all four of those fuckers in his mind.

The woman behind the bar had been different, though. She'd had the sharp-edged eyes of someone who'd never entered the crystal maze or, at least, had come out on the other side. 

When Niko spoke Trevor's name, the recognition was immediate, followed by panic, followed by a theatrical calm.

"I don't know who you're talking about," she'd said haughtily, becoming quite taken with wiping a glass that Niko saw was perfectly clear.

"You do." Niko had fanned out his fingers across the ancient-looking bartop and leaned casually so the other patrons would stay oblivious. "You do know, and you're going to tell me."

His jacket fell open then, just enough that his shoulder holster made itself known. It wasn't intentional, but it was effective. Niko saw the aging face below the dyed-red hair twist into a perfect rendition of someone regretting the life choices that brought them to this moment. He hates to see a woman in fear, but the ends he's chasing more than justify the means.

"God help me, I think he lives on Zancudo, but I'm not sure."

And maybe Trevor _ had _ lived there, at some point, but Niko's driven the width and breadth of that entire sorry excuse for a neighborhood enough times that he could do it blindfolded, but he can't find that goddamn red pickup truck. 

And okay, what the fuck, it's 3:30 in the morning and he's on his fifth cup of coffee and he's stared at the Blaine County Radio billboard so long that it's burned into his memory, and all of that might be why he feels just vulnerable enough to admit it: It _ hurts. _It fucking hurts to think that Cath might know he’s on this coast - hell, might even know he’s in this county - and still doesn’t want to see him. 

It should be enough for him, right? It should be enough for Niko to know that she's alive. It should be enough to know that, despite their fuck-ups, Michael and his crew have done what he asked and kept her that way. 

No, Niko knows better. He's known it for years, with a certainty he wish he'd had for anything else in his life. It isn't enough.

He still holds onto the hope, vain and pathetic as it may be, that, when he sees her, the jumbled jigsaw of the last few years will slide perfectly into place for him. Roman always did mock him for being an idealist. 

The streetlight overhead begins to die, and its harsh orange strobing pulls Niko from the mishmash of thoughts before they get too jumbled. In the dimming halo of light he notices a familiar red-and-white box, left on the passenger floorboard by whoever he'd stolen this car from earlier tonight. Redwoods. Catherine's brand.

He thinks immediately of that night in Middle Park, a few weeks after his accident, when he'd hobbled out to meet Catherine despite her insistence that he stay home and rest. He'd had enough resting, and besides, having her in his apartment so much was doing weird things to his head.

As they talked, she dug in her purse and fished out that same red-and-white packet, dropped it, and Niko remembers the flat sound it made as it hit the concrete. He didn't like the way she'd looked up at him, like he was going to punish her somehow, but his concern didn't outweigh his convictions.

Niko cut his eyes at her. "I thought you were going to quit that shit. It's going to kill you, you know."

Catherine tossed her hair and cut her eyes right back. Her irritation sent a little thrill through him, probably because he's a sick bastard.

"Well, you know what, so can driving too fast for weather conditions, but oh, I guess I'm not allowed to talk about that, am I."

She stooped, but Niko swiped his foot and they both watched the carton go skittering under the railing to plop down right in the middle of a panicking flock of ducks. Niko gave her a self-satisfied grin, but it fell like a stone when she started to cry. Not just cry, but _ sob_.

Niko only caught part of the ensuing rant - "-and you don't know how it is because _ you _ have family here and _ you _ have fifty trillion friends and _ you _ have cars and penthouses and-" - because he was too busy hating himself for only having enough courage to stand and stare.

He thinks now of the cigarette butt he could never bring himself to throw out, the one with a ring of crimson lipstick, faded pink now, the one that _ still _ rests in the ashtray he leaves out for guests.

Niko picks up the Redwoods from the floorboard, relieved to find that there's one lonely cigarette left. He lights it with the handy little device that they don't put in cars anymore and wonders for the thousandth time if this is what Catherine tastes like.

He smokes and coughs and drives and thinks. He's considering buying another pack, despite the way it burns in his lungs and stings his eyes, when a passing airfield catches his attention. 

Trevor is a pilot, Michael had said. This is the hangar closest to Zancudo, where the woman at the bar claimed Trevor lives. Niko thinks this is what he's heard dozens of officers call 'reasonable suspicion'.

The lock on the hangar door breaks easy enough with bolt cutters. Niko only needs to raise the massive door a few inches to see what he needs to see. Something he'd recognize from three football fields away, because he chased it all through Rockford Hills just a couple of nights ago. It’s akin to finally meeting a celebrity whose movies you’ve memorized.

Betty32 her busted-up, bright-red self. 

\--

Surrealist landscapes of half-asleep morph and melt into the shape of a Mexican hotel room.

The sounds of birds and traffic are carried in on the occasional coastal breeze ruffling the curtains of the still-open balcony door while Trevor lays there, fully awake and curled around Catherine and very vehemently not wanting to go to work. He can't remember a time when what was nearby and familiar held more appeal than what was out there and undiscovered. 

Trevor doesn't know how to deal with that, so he untangles himself, and as he dresses, he locks the thoughts into a box on the very highest, very furthest shelf in the back of his mind. 

Leaving the bathroom, swiping Adderall dust from his nose, he sees the marks he made on her last night, with his teeth and his lips and his hands, scattered sickly-dark over her chest and shoulders like some kind of fucked-up checkerboard, and it makes him queasy for some reason.

Trevor doesn't stand over her for too long, finally pressing a kiss to her temple when he can summon the willpower to wake her. Catherine breathes in deep and smiles, her eyes fluttering open and fixing on him, and Trevor’s chest swells. He traps a lock of her wild hair in his fingers and tugs a little.

“I’m headed out, sweet pea, okay?” 

She closes a hand over his and leans into his touch. Her brows knit, and her voice comes out croaky with sleep.

“Business?”

Trevor swallows when he nods, but he isn't sure why. Catherine's bittering face distracts him.

“But...but I thought we were gonna get breakfast at that place I found downtown.” She looks down and mutters, "I really wanted to try the sweet bread."

Then she looks up at him again, sucks in a breath, and Trevor can see her contemplating.

Her tone is level, carefully controlled when she asks, "Pretty interesting that the Pegorinos showed up right when you needed to go to Mexico anyway, isn't it?"

Trevor is careful not to falter, knowing it could ruin everything. His eye only twitches a little bit.

"I was supposed to go to Mexico _ next _ weekend, if you'll remember. Had to fast-track the schedule some."

She searches his face, and Trevor can see her tightened muscles relax, but only slightly.

He sighs. “Look, when I get back, we’ll talk about it, everything, whatever you want, okay? Alright? But for now, I need you to just listen to me, alright? For once?”

This makes Catherine draw into herself further, taking back her hands and folding them in her lap. That sick feeling from earlier pulls on Trevor's guts again. He checks his watch, relieved to find that he doesn't have time to address it. He hops to his feet after a peck to her cheek.

“I’m leaving some money on the nightstand. Go get some breakfast, huh?”

Catherine's answer is small, resigned. "Okay, Trev."

He winks at her from the door, but her responding smile is just as weak as her voice was.

"That's my girl."

When he and Chef hop into the Injection he had Chef acquire by totally legal means, Trevor realizes he was wrong about this morning; he's never been happier to go to work in his life.

\--

It's past noon when Catherine's hunger can no longer be ignored.

She does her hair up, really aims to impress with her makeup, puts on her sweetest sundress, and feels marginally better when she leaves Trevor's money on the table. 

It's far too late in the day to find breakfast, but with Trevor's blessing, she sets out into the sun-soaked city to take some pictures, eat a flan or two, and, more importantly, to shut her mind up.

The zig-zagging, rainbow streets do the trick, for a while. Catherine feels the bedrock-deep history emanating from every building, from every worn stone under her every step, but the little desert trailer stays at the front of her mind's eye. How on earth, Catherine asks herself, can she possibly feel _ homesick _in a place like this? How, surrounded by life at its most colorful, at its most enticing, could she let her thoughts be anchored to a rusty tube that stinks of meth and other terrible decisions?

It isn't the trailer, she knows, but rather the man who lives inside it, the one who says "south" and "top" _ just _ different enough to elicit double-takes, the one who looked like a Vice City dream this morning in his floral button-up and khakis and white Adidas, the one who could break her in half with his bare hands (probably with her permission). The man who, goddammit, can still make her sternum feel like it will crack in half even when she's certain he’s hiding something from her.

Catherine meanders through the marketplace, pushed here and led there by a mass of bodies, and lets their cheerful noise wash her thoughts out through her ears. She's trying to decide whether a white or a red corsage goes better with her dress when Trevor finally calls. Except it's not Trevor.

"Catherine."

The connection is iffy, and the voice is shaky, but it's one she knows, and the world narrows down to exclude everything but the sound of it.

"Nancy? Nan, what's wrong?"

"Oh, honey." A long pause filled with the hitching breaths of someone who's just been crying. "I've been trying to reach you for days. Peter's dead."

\--

Trevor’s cut should be at least five percent higher. They’re screwing him over.

He knows it - Chef knows it, judging by the crooked glances he keeps sending Trevor’s way - and these cartel _ tenientes _ know it. Five percent doesn’t sound like much, but it could mean the difference between Carlos’ continued help and his wrath, and somehow, Trevor finds that he couldn’t give less of a shit.

They were smart to herd him in here, into a tiny one-room, one-door metal shed with nothing and no one around for miles. Trevor may be crazy, but he isn't stupid enough to try anything in such cramped quarters. Even if he made it outside, he'd be dead before his eyes had time to adjust to the sunlight.

Trevor's spent the entire negotiation process in a daze, letting perhaps the biggest deal of his life be relegated to muscle memory. He stares at his battered shoes, feels the grit of the sand in them, and lets his mind cloud over with wondering what Catherine decided to eat for breakfast, if she ever actually got out of bed. No, she's definitely still wrapped up in sheets, watching some video with a title like 'Cute Funny Animals Try Not To Laugh!!' and failing that challenge within the first five seconds. The thought makes him smile, which in turn makes him even angrier that he's being made to wait.

"Your boss always this late?" Trevor goads, swiping away a bead of sweat before it gets into his eye.

There isn't the effect he'd hoped, just the murmured insults of two natives too comfortable with their own tongues to realize that their guests understand them. Madrazo’s guys, from somewhere way down the ladder.

“_...hombre calvo...ese cabrón de los cojones...estúpido viejo…_”

All eyes snap to Trevor and all hands likewise to their guns when he takes a step that sets off a mini dust landmine under his boot.

“I’m gonna give you some advice, _ amigos._” He emphasizes every syllable, knowing they can understand him, too. “Fear the old man in a game where men die young.”

There's just enough pause for the other two to exchange smarmy looks and shift their AKs to their other shoulders in a cocksure show of force before something punctures the front of the shack. A small metal something embeds itself in the back wall and light filters in through the hole it made.

There’s enough time for one of them to quietly ask “..._ Pero qué coño?_” before a dozen more pinpricks of light punch through and the man who posed the question is flat on his back, the bullet in his chest serving as the answer. 

"Fuck! T! Ambush!" Chef wails, reaching for his gun before remembering it was taken. "The window, let's go!"

But when Chef whirls around, his boss is gone. That's when he hears the gasping, the sputtering, bubbling up from somewhere at his feet. And then, above the hail of gunfire, the screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Readers, friends, if you've stuck with this despite the delays, from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU ❤️
> 
> I graduated grad school last month and am still looking for a job in my field, which has eaten up most of the time I don't spend at work. Plus my husband was quite sick with a respiratory infection and needed a lot of attention (he's much better now, thank you for the Tumblr messages my babes). Vicious cycle. Hope the stress hasn't affected my writing too much. As always, please let me know what you think. Your words keep me going ❤️


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Warnings_: child abuse, brief mention of sexual abuse, and one f-slur

Catherine hates fireworks about as much as she hates tornadoes, and for much the same reasons. Unsurprisingly, she thinks, many of those reasons have to do with her dad.

There was a time, back when the Rowans were still doing their best impression of a functional family, where they still hosted company. On the day in question, seemingly Charlie's whole unit was packed into the tiny, fenced-in backyard, plus a number of neighbors and the few family friends who could still in good conscience associate themselves with Officer Rowan.

Her father was already plastered by the time he lit up the grill, of course, but that was okay because hey, where's a man allowed to get shitfaced before noon if not in the comfort of his own home? It must have been the Fourth of July, Catherine reckons, because of the fireworks. She remembers the nasty look her mother shot her when she, a child of six, had the audacity to act nervous at the sight of the shiny packages, knowing what deafening, blinding panic lay within them.

"Catherine Erin, do _ not _ make a scene," her mother scolded when she pulled her daughter inside, "or I _ promise _ I'll embarrass you in front of God and everybody."

Her mother raised her hand, got the whimper that promised compliance, and replaced the mask of the cheerful hostess. Catherine remembers just standing there alone in the darkened kitchen, her cheeks burning with the tears she was now safe to cry, watching her mother slip through the sliding glass door and back into the role she played so convincingly. 

She also remembers the tears, hot with shame, that flowed again when the sun went down and all the chaos started. The unpredictable pops and bangs, the showers of sparks that fell right on the grass - right on the grass! - the hooting and hollering of every human voice in earshot, as well as those of several dogs. 

Charlie found his daughter cowering under the crawlspace and, as promised, in front of God and everybody, dragged her out through the dirt and dead leaves, clawing and crying, and gave her rear end and legs hell with the flat of his hand. Most adults looked on, or bent low to their gawking children - "See? This is what happens when you don't listen to mommy and daddy." - and none, not a one, stepped in while her father grunted a litany, one of his ol' reliables, one that has folded itself into the creases of Catherine's brain:

"You wanna cry, I'll give ya somethin'a fuckin' cry about."

("Aw c'mon, babe," later boyfriends would press, as Catherine shuddered at the notion, "I'm not gonna spank you _ that _ hard.")

And Catherine knew instinctively, like an infant knows to swim before it can walk, that she couldn't tell anyone. Or, at least, that no one would find it so reproachful as to do anything about it. Everyone, from her neighbors to her principal to the goddamn chief of police, was an ardent Catholic; what a man did with his family in his own home was between that man and god. And any god that would let happen what so often happened in the Rowan home, Catherine reasoned, didn’t deserve to be a god at all.

\--

"_Señora? Señora, estas bien?_"

Catherine feels, from a far-off, hazy place, the kindly old man in the straw hat helping her to her feet. Dirt crumbles and falls from her trembling knees. She remembers darting down this damp alley as Nancy told her how she'd found Pete face-down in the front doorway, how there was no way they could have an open casket.

"Um, I, I-" is all she can push through her chattering teeth.

Nothing comes when she wracks her brain. Nothing but Trevor. Have to find him. Have to see him. His amber eyes afire and scheming. Have to feel him. His arms circled tight to keep her from blowing apart. Have to hear his voice. Have to get home. Nancy, Petey, Trevor, Nancy, Petey...

Catherine steadies herself against the wall while the old man murmurs, something involving _ ambulancia. _

"Um, I, no, _ gracias._"

When she turns the corner, going down the busy thoroughfare only far enough that the old man is out of sight, she calls.

Trevor doesn't answer. Fingers quivering, Catherine tries again. Trevor doesn't answer. Breath stuttering, Catherine tries again.

The unending river of people rushes by, forking around her to reconvene, unheeding. Her head starts to hurt, then to split. Finally, someone answers, but no one speaks. 

The signal is pure static, perforated by pops that could be fireworks but aren't. 

_ I'll give you somethin'a fuckin' cry about, _ her father growls. She flinches at the stinging memory of his palm. Now is not the time. Catherine presses the phone into her ear until it hurts, but she can't pull any (current) voices from the cacophony. The line goes dead.

She stares at the sidewalk until the world goes blurry. People nudge past in slow motion, laughing, shouting. She holds her breath until she can feel the blood vessels in the backs of her eyes dance to the beat of her pulse. Her palm is sweaty when she brings it to her forehead, over and over, pleading with her buzzing braincells.

_ Trackify_, they offer. _ Find Trevor's phone. _

She can't tell if the whispered ‘please’ she keeps hearing is inside or outside her head. Trackify loads and loads.

A hit. Her chest threatens to burst then deflates again. Miles away. Too many miles. 

She hails a cab and uses Eyefind to translate. The driver shakes his head. _ Muy lejos_. Too far. She'll do anything. He starts to roll up the window. Catherine scrambles for the wad of purple notes that she almost left on the nightstand and flashes it. 

The driver greets Miguel Hidalgo like an old friend. 

(Hidalgo was _ Roman _ Catholic, but Catherine will consider it a miracle nonetheless.)

Before they've reached the city's edge, every one of Catherine's manicured nails are nubs. She watches the blood pool around what's left of her cuticles, watches it glisten cheerily in the afternoon sun. The cabbie sings off-key. He drums his palms on the steering wheel out of rhythm. He hurls every insult in the book and some of his own creation at fellow drivers. These are the things Catherine focuses on to keep from losing her late breakfast all over the backseat.

Only when the suburbs turn to sand does she consider the odds that this is a massive mistake. 

She steps out of the car and into a disarmingly gorgeous Senora sunset, in some seemingly meaningless spot off the highway - the furthest into the desert that she can convince her chauffeur to go. A blank plot of sand that goes on forever. Not a single cactus, not a single palm tree. Hell, she'd settle for a fata morgana.

The cabbie is making tracks before she can second-guess it, not that she would. The heat, oh, the _ heat _ \- it makes her body feel like it's losing the boundaries that distinguish it from the outside world. Sand fills her shoes and cuts at her soles as she starts in the direction of the beacon, sounding off from nearly a mile away, clutching her phone to her chest in both hands like a lifeline.

Catherine can’t be sure how long she’s been walking, but if the sun goes down, she may as well sit and wait for the wolves to find her. Probably better than what the Pegorinos have in store. Being eaten alive, or having her fingernails yanked out - she’ll take “Decisions I Never Thought I’d Have To Make” for $2000, Mr. Trebek. While Catherine fights to keep a grip on herself, her seven-year-old self jumps a defiant double-dutch: _ Pete and Trevor, Pete and Trevor, one is dead and the other's deader. _

The sun is dangerously close to sinking below the horizon when she finally crests the hill. The sight at the bottom more closely resembles something out of one of Michael's gangster films than reality.

Men, a half dozen of them, in various states of functioning, are strewn about outside the metal shack like the abandoned toys of a particularly morbid child. Some men on their backs, missing parts of their heads. Some on their fronts, suffocated by red sand. Some so misshapen they can hardly be recognized as men.

No balding, lanky speed freaks (at least none that are hers), but it's too soon to be relieved. 

Absurd numbers of guns litter the sand, carbon islands in a twinkling sea of shell casings. Empty dune buggies and trucks sit at various haphazard angles, completing the toy box analogy. A tarp on the back of one of the pickups flaps lazily in the scorching breeze, the only discernible sound.

As she stumbles down the dune, Catherine shuts out all of this information with the desperate efficiency that only a traumatic childhood can hone. She thinks instead of the little white chapel on Route 68, and how, if Trevor isn't to be counted among the bodies, she'll be first in the pews every Sunday.

At the bottom, close to the ramshackle metal shed that houses more corpses, but not, on closer inspection, Trevor's or Chef's, footsteps shuffle toward her.

"Catherine," Chef breathes, clutching a rifle to his chest. "Oh jesus fuck, I almost fucking shot you."

Catherine doesn't answer, because she's too busy trying to figure out what the hell is making that sound. That rasping, hissing sound. 

"Chef, what," she tries to start, but the engine won't turn over. "What, what, where-"

God, that sound, that _ sound_.

She can't take it any longer. Catherine rounds the shed. Her body revolts against the sight. 

It demands that she double back around the front to lean on the wall and heave what little her stomach holds. Not five feet away, one of the sunburnt strangers lies flat on his back, halfway down the shed steps, pupils the size of dimes and whites scorched red in the sun. The smell hits the back of her throat and makes her retch again. Nothing comes up but what little saliva is left.

_ Oh god, _ is all she can think to think. _ Oh god, oh god, oh god. _

Sand cuts into her knees, burning even in the shade, when she goes back around and kneels beside something is decidedly _ not _ Trevor. 

It's not Trevor slumped against the wall, gulping air. That's not his shirt, neon pink hibiscus now mottled red, almost as red as his khakis. That's not his ever-warm skin, going bluish in the fading light. This is just the shell of some poor creature that death touched and cruelly abandoned before finishing the job.

Head at an odd angle, Not-Trevor's breath rattles and wheezes in his throat, bringing little bubbles of red to the corners of his mouth. Eyelids flutter over unfocused eyes. No rage. No pain. Just...nothing.

Red-hot and drying dark, Trevor's life is leaking out of a hole in his chest. 

Catherine tries moving his hand away from it, but his body is fiercely rigid, crushing a copy of Chef’s rifle to his other side. His chest rises and falls in one-second intervals. Every few useless breaths, a limb or finger jerks.

Creeping horror, like an invisible army of insects swarming over her skin, starts low in her toes and sweeps up, up, up, tarrying in her stomach before shooting up her throat to rest heavy in her head. Against her hard-won will, she crosses herself.

"Trevor." Catherine grasps at his shoulders, hands feeling oddly small and useless. Her voice sounds tinny and far away. "Trev. Baby."

He doesn't even know she's here.

"He's," Chef swallows, appearing behind her. "He's barely holding on."

He obviously expects Catherine to say something, to cry, to _ anything_. Everything except kneeling there is beyond her abilities, and even that's becoming questionable. She feels her breath hot in her nostrils and her blood cold in her veins and the yawning black pit of dread in the corners of her consciousness. She tunes in to Chef's monologue partway through.

"-Madrazo's got guys on the way, they're gonna take us to his medic-"

"How long?" 

"Thirty minutes, at least."

"What about that?"

Catherine points to the only vehicle that looks usable, the rust bucket of a pickup truck that sits some yards away, tarp flapping away on the back, sides riddled with 5.56mm holes. Chef shrugs and turns back to her, careful not to look at Trevor. His voice cracks a little.

"I can't drive stick."

Catherine jump-starts to life.

"I can." Her eyes are in danger of falling out of her skull when she leaps to her feet and looks up at him. "Chef, I can! I can drive stick!"

\--

Trevor is fifteen again. 

Long, greasy hair. Pathetic attempt at a moustache. Always tall, always gangly; his ma would point and turn to her Boyfriend of the Week and cackle, "Doesn't he look like he's been run over by a steamroller? What kind of girl would wanna let that bastard between her legs?" Cue swaying on feet with drunken sniggering.

He's seventeen when he convinces his hockey team's centre forward to pay for weed with sex. Centre Forward's mother catches him with his pants down (literally) and screeches at him, throwing whatever she can reach while he flees: "_I’ll have you off the team, you fucking faggot! I’ll have you fucking arrested!_”

He's nineteen and getting reamed by his CO because someone ratted him out about his decidedly non-standard-issue pink silk negligee: "We don't let homos in the force, son," the Captain said, shaking his head with equal parts pity and disgust. "Philips, right? You’ll be having your psych eval soon.” (He's nineteen and some warm January day, Catherine is born at Pillbox Hill Medical Center.)

He's twenty and kneeling over a mostly-dressed hooker, lifting her skirt with nervous hands. She smirks at him from behind a cigarette: "You're shakin' all over. This your first time, sugar?" He remembers Ryan looming over him, smirking while he forced his younger half-brother to do sick things. Ryan wouldn't be smiling for too much longer after that. Trevor's voice only wavers a little when he tells the girl, "Not by a long shot."

He's twenty-three and Michael sees him stuff a dress under his jacket while they rob a department store: "This is why you can't get any pussy that ain't paid for, Philips."

He's thirty when he wakes up next to a puddle of vomit, and rolls over to face the girl who choked to death on it. "I think I took too much" had been her sleepy last words. He doesn't remember where he buried her.

He’s thirty-six when his best friend _ fakes his own fucking death _ just to get away from him. He’s thirty-seven when he gets the tattoo, a permanent memorial to a temporary friendship; one that will, despite Michael’s miraculous resurrection, never live again. He’s thirty-eight when history goes dark, a drug-fueled blur that picks back up around forty.

He's forty-six when he sees her for the first time. A chiffon dream from a whole other reality where people like him don't exist and only one of her does. He’s forty-six when he starts to think that there may be someone - one someone, but oh, what a someone - that he might get to keep.

\--

Trevor knows a lot about life, and he knows what it feels like to hang from the edge of it.

What little time he has left comes in brief snippets, like a stage play where he's the only one in the audience and he's slept through half the show.

Rumbling, jostling, Chef, Catherine. Someone holding his head, not quite preventing the world from spinning. Laying on his back. Rough, wet fingers at his neck and wrists every once in a while, feeling for the weak pulse.

A pop. Tinkling glass. A scream. Rumble, jostle, _ lurch_. Men shouting. Two more pops. Fireworks, maybe. Those same fingers at his neck, at his wrist. Weight on his chest. 

The thought of, the want for Catherine seems to have summoned her. He sees her as if through a telescope, hears her voice as though through wads of cotton, and there are rivulets of red down the side of her face, matting her hair, trickling down her arm. She's crying. 

The girl who'd choked to death on her vomit now wears Catherine's face and he groans, only just keeping his own vomit down. It burns the back of his throat. He reaches out to her in his mind, calls her name, and she seems to know. She turns from where she is in the driver's seat, very much alive, and gives him the weakest little smile - "I'm here, baby. I’m not going anywhere. I'm here."

He's forty-six when he decides, once and for all, that he has to live.

\--

As most things do, Trevor's truck burns easy enough.

So does the hangar, and the tower, and the shed, and…

Niko watches from a hill across the train tracks as the paltry ten members of the Sandy Shores Volunteer Fire Department rushes around the hateful blaze like an entire flock of beheaded chickens, or however the American saying goes. 

There's a little of that distinct regret that comes with acting on impulse, but it's easy enough to swallow down when he imagines that balding old redneck's face contorting with rage when he sees what Niko has done. Niko's disappointed that he won't get to see it himself.

That regret morphs and expands into something sickening when Niko remembers De Santa's terrified accusation - _ Trevor, what did you do to her? _ \- and Niko’s mind flies bullet-fast down dark alleys of possibility. What could Trevor do, having Catherine in his possession (Willingly? Unwillingly? Neither is comforting), when he discovers the wreckage? 

Niko knows. He’s seen the depths of man’s depravity. Catherine takes the form of one of those handless children lined up on the church wall before he can blink away the image. He sits in his stolen car and tries to come up with a back-up plan, considering he's so stupidly ruined the original. It strikes him well past midnight, long after the hangar and its surroundings are nothing more than smoking black stains in the sand.

"Speak," comes the voice on the other end of the phone; always alert, regardless of the hour.

"It's Bellic."

Silence, then furious typing.

"Well?" Lester demands.

"Catherine’s new address, I know you know it. Give it to me."

Niko clenches his fist when Lester gives a smug laugh that he wouldn't have dared let out if Niko were face to face with him.

"Mmm, no, I don't think so."

"I'm not trying to _ hurt _ her, goddammit," Niko barks, bringing that fist down on the dash, "so stop trying to protect her, or you're the one that's going to need fucking protection-"

That self-satisfied chuckle again. "Now let's not jump to any absurd conclusions."

Niko is baffled. "Such as?"

"Such as your assumption that I'm trying to hide anything from you."

"I'm so sick of this bullshit. I'm going to find you in that shithole city, and-"

Lester laughs for a third time. "Maybe you've been out of the game a little too long Bellic, so let me spell it out for you. I. Can't. Be. Threatened." There's a creak, which Niko imagines is the other man's weary desk chair, threatening to give in. He can perfectly imagine Lester leaning back, linking his hands over his considerable belly like "But I can be bought."

"Fine," Niko acquiesces immediately, rubbing his temple. 

Another creak, this one more ominous - Lester shooting forward in his chair. "Fine? _ Fine?_" He scoffs. "I've seen your Bank of Liberty account. This wild goose chase with your little lady friend has cleared you out. Barely enough for a night in Sandy Shores Motel, much less-"

"_Give me a number_," Niko grits, rubbing his head harder.

Lester does, snickering all the while.

"Oh, and, uh, Bellic."

"Uh huh."

"You wouldn't have anything to do with a two-alarm fire at Sandy Shores Airfield, now would you?"

_ Click. _

\--

Madrazo wasn't lying.

When they come to a screeching stop outside the unmarked and unremarkable building, someone is waiting for them. Four men, two gurneys, all parked and ready to go at the curb.

Trevor - gasping, twitching - gets their attention first; the men bundle him out of the backseat and onto a stretcher, surprisingly gentle, and bustle into the clinic, shouting in Spanish. Catherine is held back when she tries to follow.

"Not me," Chef is shouting at someone, "her!"

Catherine resists on instinct, body seizing up against the unwelcome intrusion, when they try to lift her onto what was supposed to be Chef's stretcher.

"Come on," Chef urges her, surely more out of fear of his boss than of genuine concern, "At least let them take a look at you, I mean _ jesus_, there's blood everywhere-"

Catherine gives up the fight, exhaustion sweeping over her in a numbing current, and lets the paramedics do as they please. They race her along the same path that Trevor just traveled - _ oh god Trevor, please, please don't let me lose him too, oh jesus CHRIST _ \- and Chef jogs along behind.

They wheel her past countless doors to a small room, clean and white and already full of people in scrubs. All of them start moving and talking at once and not one of them is Trevor. They lift her onto the bed despite her protests - _ they're just scratches, please, you have to go help Trevor, please help him _ . Catherine starts to crawl off the bed with the same single-minded purpose that drove her through the desert an hour ago - _ have to find Trevor, have to see him _ \- but they're crowding around her, pushing, coercing.

One points at her and turns his head to Chef, who's hanging back.

"_Cuál es su nombre?_"

Chef blinks. "_ Nombre_...uh, Catherine."

"Miss Catherine, please, we are trying to help, just-"

Everyone freezes when she does.

Catherine looks up at Chef and says, "My hat."

Chef blinks again, rapidly. "Your...your what?"

"I left my hat in the cab."

They can't catch her before she hits the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's that you say? This chapter is embarrassingly short relative to how long it took me to post it? Have no fear, because the other half of this emotionally draining sequence of events will be posted next week! AND I'm posting a smutty GTA V one-shot later THIS week! (All that is to say, pls don't give up on me I'm really trying ok)
> 
> Chapterly thank-yous are in order for all the unique and irreplaceable people who read and interact with this story, despite its (and my) shortcomings. You are just hngngngnngggggggg so special to me and I'm so glad to have you.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm having a great time writing this, and I hope you enjoy reading it!
> 
> Feel free to come yell at me on [my Tumblr](https://www.verbos-fanblog.tumblr.com). I draw sometimes, too.
> 
> Remember that content creators thrive on feedback! I'd love to hear what you think so far, even if you think it sucks. You are the reason I write.


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